Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Amr today welcomed UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon's decision to choose Finland as the host of next year's conference addressing areas free of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. Amr also welcomed the appointment of Deputy Finnish Foreign Minister as Conference Coordinator. The conference will be held to execute the provision of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and make good on the demands from the conference in 2010. “The conference must realize tangible results by launching a negotiating process that has a vision of a world free of nuclear weapons,” said Amr. “This conference enhances the possibility that the Middle East will be free of nuclear and mass destruction weapons, which is one of the foreign ministry's main goals,” he added. “The time has come to translate the 1995 NPT conference's calls into tangible results, which will be expedited with cooperation from the U.S., the UK and Russia,” Amr said. Egypt will continue the coordination on the Arab level to push the common Arab interest at all levels, Amr continued. “Egypt will look forward to cooperating with Finland and the Finnish coordinator to reach its target as soon as possible.”
