Vice FM at High-Level Political Meeting of PSI

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ A delegation led by D.Gankhuyag, the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, is participating in a high-level political meeting of the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) running in Warsaw, Poland. During the meeting, the delegation exchanged views with delegates from some countries on the bilateral relations and cooperation, for example, the Filipino officials highly spoke Mongolia's organizing the seventh Ministerial Conference of the Community of Democracies (CoD) and expressed readiness to attend measures to be taken in a scope of this conference. At the high-level meeting, Mr Gankhuyag gave a speech dedicated to the 10th anniversary of the PSI, saying that Mongolia supports the PSI and has been actively collaborating with countries in it. For instance, Mongolia established a cooperation memorandum with the USA in 2007 on preventing illegal trade of nuclear and radioactive materials. In accordance with this memorandum, the U.S. side has supplied radioactive and nuclear material detecting equipment costing USD 10 million to Mongolia. In addition, a Mongolia-US joint training was held in 2011 in Mongolia in frames of the intergovernmental agreement on prohibiting the distribution of weapons of mass destruction and relevant materials. The PSI is a global effort that aims to stop trafficking of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), their delivery systems, and related materials to and from states and non-state actors of proliferation concern. Launched by United States President George W. Bush in May 2003 at a meeting in Kraków, Poland, the PSI has now grown to include the endorsement of 102 nations around the world, including Russia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Singapore, New Zealand, Republic of Korea and Norway. Despite the support of over half of the Members of the United Nations, a number of countries have expressed opposition to the initiative, including India, China, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Ending Wednesday, the high-level meeting will release four joints statements on strengthening activities of the national organizations, on expanding the strategic communications, on ensuring active initiatives, and on strengthening the capability and experience of stopping of the weapons.