MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 25th June, 2019) Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Hassan Shoukry expressed hope on Monday that the possible creation of a zone in the middle East that would be free of nuclear weapons and all other weapons of mass destruction (WMDFZ) would bring stability to the volatile region.
Earlier in the day, Shoukry held a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow.
"We also assessed the joint actions of Russia and Egypt, including the creation of a zone free of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East and the means of its delivery ... We hope that this will help to bring the region out of the zone of instability and strengthen the non-proliferation regime, and will serve to strengthen stability and security in the region," Shoukry said at joint press conference with Lavrov.
The foreign minister added that Lavrov and he also touched upon the need to fight all terrorist groups at the security and ideological level.
"We also agreed on the need to unite the international community's efforts in order to counter this phenomenon, so that some countries would not use it to their advantage. And we agreed on the need to call on such countries not to adopt such a line in destabilizing security and stability in other countries and regions," the Egyptian top diplomat said.
The idea to create a nuclear weapon free zone in the Middle East was first voiced by Egypt and Iran back in 1974, but it then evolved into a proposal to create a zone that would be free of all other types of weapons of mass destruction as well.
A conference on the establishment of a WMDFZ in the Middle East was initially supposed to have been organized in 2012, but it never took place. The conference is now slated to take place in New York in November.
