Dear {name}

We are delighted to send you our latest newsletter with updates on our activities since January 2022.

1. Webinar titled The War in Ukraine: Repercussions in the World and in the Middle East
2. Draft Treaty 4.0 now online
3. The Humanitarian Impact of WMDs on the Middle East
4. The Bright Side - Good News from the Middle East
5. In The Zone - our latest podcasts
6. METO Student Journal and dates for our summer course 2022
7. Meet our panel of advisors
8
. In solidarity and support: a statement on Ukraine

Please do consider making a donation to help us with our work. With best wishes from everyone at METO.

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The same as peace activists and disarmament practitioners all around the world, METO was horrified by Russia's invasion of Ukraine (see our position on this below). While diplomatic efforts to restore some semblance of peace in that region are floundering and arms manufacturers rub their hands in glee, citizens around the world will pay the price in terms of their human security. METO together with our friends at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy held a webinar focusing on the implications for the Middle East.

Our expert panellists included: Dr Ali Fathollah-Nejad (Iran/Germany), Associate Fellow at the American University of Beirut; Amb. Lina Arafat (Jordan), METO; Amb. Karim Haggag (Egypt), Professor at the American University in Cairo, and; Sharon Dolev (Israel), Executive Director of METO. The session was moderated by Marc Finaud (France/Switzerland), from GCSP.

If you were unable to join this thought-provoking session, please click the button below and you can watch the panellists presentations or the entire event.

Watch our webinar...
Draft Treaty 4.0 online!

METO's core product continues to be our Draft Treaty: a synthesis of hundreds of hours of consultations with current and former diplomats, academics and civil society experts. This document is packed full of useful ideas for those diplomats tasked with writing the text of a treaty that all countries of the proposed WMD-Free Zone could eventually sign and ratify.

Our latest version, Draft Treaty 4 (DT4) goes in a different direction to DT3 by expanding in greater detail on the institutional arrangements for such a zone —a Middle East Treaty Organization, if you will—together with details on a possible common system for confidence-building and verification of nuclear, fissile, chemical, and biological materials.

Please click below to read DT4 online on our website, to download it in pdf format or to listen to the podcast we recorded with our Treaty Coordinator, Leonardo Bandarra and our Executive Director, Sharon Dolev.

online pdf Podcast
The Humanitarian Impact of WMDs on the Middle East

Giving a voice to survivors

The Humanitarian Impact of WMDs on the Middle East is a project that aims to build awareness about the effects of WMDs on the population and the environment during the whole lifecycle of weapons: from the impacts of uranium mining, the pre-cursor chemicals and biological agents on local communities, through to the testing of such devices, and their use during times of conflict.

Amplifying the voices of WMD survivors and their lived experiences is a significant tool in building a discourse towards total WMD disarmament and non-proliferation, as has been evidenced by the effectiveness of a humanitarian focus on campaigns to prohibit landmines, cluster munitions and nuclear weapons in the last two decades.

The Humanitarian Project will bring forth and highlight the stories of the people who have suffered from the use or testing of WMDs in the Middle East. It will also draw attention to the various needs of the survivors as they are still struggling to obtain any form of humanitarian assistance to deal with the consequences of such attacks.

METO has launched the first phase of this project with our Programme Associate, Aayushi Sharma in which we are reaching out to survivors groups across the region.  Our first tangible result has been an interview with Khder Kareem, survivor of the attacks on Halabja and former mayor of the city.  We have a lot more activity on this in the pipeline.  See our next newsletter for further updates.

Interview...

Too often the only news we hear from the Middle East and North Africa is negative: wars, famine, death, violence and discrimination.  But this isn't what characterises the region and every day thousands of people and civil society organizations, sometimes in partnership with governments and the private sector, are doing their best to change living situations for the better.

Every month a team from the METO University Network scours through dozens of media outlets from the region to find the best, most uplifting and positive stories coming from the region in subjects as diverse as peace and disarmament, women, renewable energy, migration, culture and even archaeology.

Feb 2022 Mar 2022 Apr 2022

METO's podcast series

METO's podcast series In The Zone having taken it easy over the last few months is getting ready to ramp up the production of interesting interviews on topics relevant to our work. 

Since our last newsletter we have produced 2 more episodes; one with Christina Kelly from Youth for TPNW, a youth group associated with the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, and another with our very own Sharon Dolev and Leonardo Bandarra on our Draft Treaty version 4.

Coming up we will have a lot of new content on topics related to the upcoming first meeting of states parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, the 10th Review Conference on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and our Humanitarian Impact Project (see above) among many others.

METO Student Journal of WMD Disarmament and Security in the Middle East

The best essays from our summer course 2021

Many months ago, back in the summer of 2021, METO held its first online summer school for students around the world on the subject of WMD disarmament and security in the Middle East. As part of their final grade, every student had to write an essay on one of the following topics: Feminist perspectives on international security and disarmament; Weapons of mass destruction free zone dividend; Obstacles facing the Zone, and; State perspectives on the Zone. The 15 best articles made it into our very first journal.

Please check out how well our students did by reading their essays. If you'd like a copy of our journal please write to tony@wmd-free.me.

METO will run its second course in the July and August of 2022.  Anyone interesting in taking part, please check out our course page by clicking on the button below.

Journal… Course…
METO's Advisors

METO is delighted to announce its list of special advisors who between them have a wealth of experience in the fields of diplomacy, weapons of mass destruction and international law.

Amb. Wael Al Assad, former High Representative of the Secretary-General of the Arab League for Disarmament and Regional Security in Vienna; Tarja Cronberg, Distinguished Associate Fellow at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute; Marc Finaud, former French diplomat who currently works with the Geneva Centre for Security Policy; Amb. Lina Arafat, Jordanian Ambassador & Former Director of the Jordan Institute of Diplomacy, and Tariq Rauf, former Head of Verification and Security Policy Coordination, Office reporting to the Director General, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), among many other roles; .

Sharon Dolev said, “Our panel of advisors are renowned experts on the region and the WMD free zone and their combined experience has been invaluable until now and will be even more so in the future as METO moves forward to another hopefully important milestone in November this year with the next session of the conference to negotiate a WMD-free zone treaty.”

Meet the team...
L-R: Wael Al-Assad, Tarja Cronberg, Marc Finaud, Lina Arafat, Tariq Rauf
In solidarity and support: a statement on Ukraine

Support for victims of the Ukraine Conflict from METO

"In light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Middle East Treaty Organization stands in solidarity with those affected by this conflict, and condemns the war, the bloodshed, and the fighting. We extend our solidarity and support to the people of both Ukraine and Russia, especially to those brave individuals of the peace movement on the streets protesting against war, and to all those around the world who are in fear of what lies ahead. Our thoughts are with those on the ground, who have been caught up in the painful and unpredictable chaos that has resulted from certain world leaders who have decided, in their delusion, that warmongering is the appropriate path to peace..."

Click below to read the full statement on our website.

Read more...

The Middle East Treaty Organization is a civil society organization founded with the goal to eradicate weapons of mass destruction from the Middle East.

Our Vision  |  A peaceful, integrated and thriving Middle East built on human and environmental security.

Our Mission  |  Eradicate WMDs, broker peace and build security in the Middle East.

You can help us in one of three ways. Subscribe to our newsletter, donate money to help us fund our activities and volunteer your time.  Please click on the buttons below to do either of those things.

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Middle East Treaty Organization - Achieving the Possible

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