From left to right: Ambassador Luiz Filipe de Macedo Soares, Secretary General of OPANAL; Ambassador Paulina Franceschi, Permanent Representative of Panama to international organizations based in Vienna; Ambassador Rafael Mariano Grossi, Permanent Representative of Argentina to international organizations based in Vienna; Gaukhar Mukhatzhanova, Director of the International Organizations and Non-Proliferation Program at the CNS.
On Wednesday, May 3, 2017 in Vienna, Austria, the Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC), coordinated by Venezuela, and the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation (VCDNP) organized the panel Tlatelolco at 50: The Continued Relevance and Potential of Nuclear Weapon-Free-Zones.
The panel is part of the celebrations of the 50th Anniversary of the conclusion of the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean – Treaty of Tlatelolco and its objective was to highlight the relevance of the Nuclear Weapons Free Zone of the Americas Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as the substantive contribution of the region to nuclear disarmament and the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.
The event began with a few words of welcome from Ambassador Jesse Chacón, Permanent Representative of Venezuela to international organizations based in Vienna and President of GRULAC. Likewise, during the inauguration, Mr. Yukiya Amano, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) addressed a few words on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the Treaty of Tlatelolco.
Participating as panelists were Ambassador Luiz Filipe de Macedo Soares, Secretary General of OPANAL; Ambassador Paulina Franceschi, Permanent Representative of Panama to international organizations based in Vienna; Ambassador Rafael Mariano Grossi, Permanent Representative of Argentina to international organizations in Vienna; and Gaukhar Mukhatzhanova, from the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS).
During his intervention, the Secretary General of OPANAL mentioned: The Treaty of Tlatelolco, with its brevity and simplicity, is characterized by an admirable political engineering which has been functioning to perfection over the last 50 years and has inspired four other regions. The Secretary General also mentioned: With Tlatelolco, Latin America and the Caribbean provides themselves with political credentials to act as a bloc and participate more intensely in the debates and international negotiations on the ban of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, on non-proliferation and on correlated matters regarding international security.
The panel Tlatelolco at 50: The Continued Relevance and Potential of Nuclear Weapon-Free-Zones took place at the Vienna International Center, outside the first Preparatory Committee for the 2020 Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, where the Secretary General of OPANAL participated.
On February 14, 2017, the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean – Treaty of Tlatelolco turned 50 years old. The Treaty is the first instrument of international law that prohibited nuclear weapons in a permanently populated region of the planet.
See the pictures of the panel.