Africa-Press – Angola. The Secretary of State for National Defense, José Maria de Lima, encouraged Thursday, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to continue training activities taking into account the country’s willingness to welcome them.
Speaking at the closing ceremony of the Training Workshop for Customs Officers and National Authorities of Portuguese-speaking Countries of the OPCW held in Luanda on December 3 to 5, the Secretary of State highlighted that events of this kind provide an excellent space for interaction and constructive dialogue and sharing experiences and good practices among countries.
The Angolan official praised the initiative of the OPCW and the World Customs Organization in promoting training actions to member states of the Convention on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (CWC), with aim to reinforce national training programs to implement this instrument to contain the proliferation and to promote disarmament of Chemical Weapons in the World.
“I express my satisfaction, on behalf of the Angolan Government, for having hosted this very important Workshop, for which we had the honor of receiving experts from the OPCW, the World Customs Organization, National Authorities and other sectors of interest from the sister countries present here , to reinforce their duties and skills”, Lima said.
Angola, the Secretary of State said, considers the full and effective implementation of the Convention on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, as well as other instruments for the non-proliferation and disarmament of weapons of mass destruction, to be a great contribution to the desire for peace, regional security and international.
According to the Secretary of State, the country also considers that, in light of the Convention, the creation of structures, platforms for dialogue and training enable better coordination between national and international actors, which is why it joins the initiative of organization of regularly holding similar events in Portuguese.
The OPCW representative, Solomon Haíle, on his turn, stated that the Workshop managed to attract the expected number of participants who are ready to take the training agenda forward and make it important.
He considered the engagement to be productive, since it generated some insights and good practices (e.g. Mozambique) that can inspire others to act more quickly and perform better in fully and effectively implementing the CWC.
“The fact that we have action plans for the country means that we have a tool to replicate training at a national level and ensure that it does not start and end in Luanda”, he said.
The training action aimed to raise awareness and train customs agent trainers on the transfer regime for chemical products controlled by the CWC, among other topics.
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