The Permanent Representative of Iraq to the United Nations Office at Geneva , Ambassador Hussein Mahmoud Al-Khatib gave the Statement of the Arab Group in Geneva as part of the discussions of the Panel of Governmental Experts on Lethal Independent Weapons Systems at the Meeting of High Contracting Parties to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW). The Permanent Representative expressed the Group’s concern at the impact of the financial difficulties facing the Convention on the principle of multilingualism, which is one of the fundamental principles of multilateralism, and reaffirmed the firm commitment of the Arab Group to multilingualism, translation and interpretation in the six official languages of the United Nations. Ensuring the effective and equitable participation of all delegations is an essential element of our collective work, allowing experts from all regions of the world to participate in the meetings of the Convention. In conclusion, Ambassador Hussain called for all necessary measures to be taken to ensure that the meetings of the Group are held in a formal, multilingual framework.
