This well attended annual Conference has established itself over the last several years as one of NATO’s largest outreach activities with partners. It will be opened by the Croatian Deputy Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Mr. Joško Klisović and NATO Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges Ambassador Gábor Iklódy. Allies’ Heads of State and Government declared at their last Summit in Chicago that “proliferation threatens our shared vision of creating the conditions necessary for a world without nuclear weapons in accordance with the goals of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)”. They further reiterated that, consistent with the Strategic Concept and their commitments under existing arms control treaties and frameworks, Allies will continue to support arms control, disarmament, and non-proliferation efforts.
This gathering of around a hundred senior non-proliferation officials from more than 50 countries and organizations, with a number of Assistant Ministers, Ambassadors or Director Generals from different nations, will provide the opportunity for an open and in-depth informal debate on four general themes:
- The future of multilateral non-proliferation regimes and initiatives;
- Current regional proliferation threats and challenges;
- Terrorism and WMD proliferation;
- NATO’s contribution to international efforts in the area of WMD arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation.
Besides NATO member states, participants are invited from partner nations across the globe, including from the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, Mediterranean Dialogue, Istanbul Cooperation Initiative, Asia and the Pacific.
The previous Conferences on the challenges of WMD proliferation were held in Rome (2004), Sofia (2005), Vilnius (2007), Berlin (2008), Warsaw (2009), Prague (2010), Bergen (2011), and Budapest (2012). Participation is by registration only.