Egypt elected vice-president of UN conference on illicit weapons trade

CAIRO – 20 March 2018: Egypt, Kenya and Sierra Leone have been elected from the African group as vice presidents of the Third Review Conference on the Program of Action to prevent, combat and eradicate the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons in all its aspects.

The decision was taken by the Preparatory Committee of the Conference, said Egypt's Permanent Representative to the UN Mohamed Idris on Monday.

Idris stressed that Egypt attaches great importance to strengthening the UN handling of all its organs with the unprecedented increase in the access of small arms and light weapons to armed and terrorist groups and the fact that some countries supply weapons to terrorists, especially in the Middle East and Africa. He added that these states direct criminal groups to target civilians and military personnel alike.

"This is a violation of the principles of the Charter of the United Nations, especially the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of states and respect for sovereignty and work to settle disputes by peaceful means," said the diplomat.

He asserted that Egypt has succeeded during its non-permanent membership of the Security Council in adopting resolution 2370 of 2017 on the prevention of terrorists from access to weapons, noting that weapons seized with terrorist groups by Egyptian security forces were supplied to terrorists by states.

The Third Review Conference will be held in June.