Conference on the Establishment of a Middle East Zone Free of Nuclear Weapons and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction

The Conference on the Establishment of a Middle East Zone Free of Nuclear Weapons and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction is held annually pursuant to General Assembly decision 73/546 (22 December 2018). Information on past sessions, intersessional work and reports of the Secretary-General is found below.

The fifth session of Session of the Conference is scheduled to take place from 18 to 22 November 2024 at United Nations Headquarters in New York.

Background

General Assembly decision 73/546 “entrusts the Secretary-General with the convening, no later than 2019…of a conference on the establishment of a Middle East zone free of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction”. Pursuant to the decision, all the States of the region were invited to consultations. Agreement was reached at these consultations by the participating States to endorse the nomination of H.E. Ms. Sima Bahous, Permanent Representative of Jordan to the UN as President-designate of the First Session of the Conference. Participating States also agreed that the conference would be held from 18 to 22 November 2019 at UN Headquarters, New York. In accordance with decision 73/546, the Secretary-General sent, in May 2019, invitation letters to all States of the Middle East to participate in the conference. Invitation letters were also sent to the five nuclear-weapon States to attend the conference, as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the Biological Weapons Convention Implementation Support Unit.

Reports of the Secretary-General

First session of the Conference – 18 to 22 November 2019

Informal workshop – 7 to 9 July 2020 

Second informal workshop – 23 to 25 February 2021

Second session of the Conference – 29 November to 3 December 2021

Third session of the Conference – 14 to 18 November 2022

Fourth session of the Conference – 13 to 17 November 2023