The appointment of Colonel Shigeyuki URANO, Ground Self-Defense Force, Defense Agency to the Technical Secretariat of the OPCW

September 27, 2004

1. Colonel Shigeyuki URANO, Ground Research and Development Command, Ground Self-Defense Force, Defense Agency, was inaugurated as Head, Operation and Planning Branch, Inspectorate Division of the Technical Secretariat of the OPCW on 1 October 2002.
2. In this post, Colonel Urano plans inspections and oversees that inspections are being carried out effectively within the verification system. His role is important to ensure States Parties' compliance with the Convention.
3. The CWC is a landmark convention that totally prohibits the use of chemical weapons, an entire category of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), and the States Parties which possess those weapons are obliged to destroy them. The CWC also contains an effective verification system for ensuring compliance of the States Parties with the obligations of CWC. Japan stresses the importance of the OPCW's role as the implementing body of the CWC. The appointment of Colonel Urano underlines Japan's continuous support to the OPCW.
4. Colonel Urano took up his post in the Hague, the Netherlands, on 1 October 2002. Colonel Urano is the third person dispatched from the Defense Agency to the Technical Secretariat of the OPCW, after Major General Akiyama, who was posted as Director of Inspectorate and Major KASAHATA, who was posted as Inspector.