Rabat - Mounia Boucetta, the Secretary of State to Morocco’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, said on Tuesday in Paris that Morocco considers the use of chemical weapons to be a violation of not only the Chemical Weapons Convention but also the Security Council’s decisions and international law.
Rabat – Mounia Boucetta, the Secretary of State to Morocco’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, said on Tuesday in Paris that Morocco considers the use of chemical weapons to be a violation of not only the Chemical Weapons Convention but also the Security Council’s decisions and international law.
Boucetta represented Morocco at the conference to launch the International Partnership Against Impunity for the Use of Chemical Weapons initiative, and the Secretary of State restated that Morocco “strongly condemns the use of chemical weapons by anyone, anywhere, and under any circumstances.”
Boucetta also drew attention to the emergence of new threats, notably non-state actors and terrorist groups, that are likely to constitute a “real danger” to both regional security and international peace.
She further called on the international community to work together to handle the aforementioned threats.
Regarding the initiative, Boucetta recalled the principle and the parameters that should guide the partners’ approach, namely the “primacy of international law, the preservation of the architecture of the non-proliferation regime, the complementarity of the partnership with existing mechanisms, the strengthening of the initiative’s openness and transparency.”
The Secretary of State also stressed the need for “capacity building,” especially for African countries. This, she added, should be the partnership’s primary objective: “to ensure the consolidation and sustainability of the regime of non-proliferation of chemical weapons.”
Morocco signed the convention prohibiting the production, sale, and use of Chemical Weapons on January 13, 1993 and actively contributed to the process that led to the adoption of the convention.
In June 2017, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has elected Morocco to be the coordinator for its African state members.
