The Hague, March 09, 2022, SPA -- The Executive Council of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) elected here today the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the presidency of the Executive Council of the OPCW for the period 2022-2023. The Executive Council will be chaired by the Saudi Ambassador the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Kingdom's permanent representative to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, Ambassador Ziyad bin Maashi Al-Attiyah. The Executive Council is the executive body of the OPCW and works to promote effective implementation and compliance with the Convention. It also supervises the activities of the technical secretariat of the organization and considers the organization's draft budget, the draft report, and the special reports it submits to the Conference of States Parties to the Convention. The election of the Kingdom as Chairman of the Executive Council of the OPCW comes in light of the continuous achievements it has achieved in the field of work in international organizations, and also reflects its pivotal role and unremitting efforts in dealing with transparency and credibility with the data of international events in this field, and the extent to which the member states of the Council and the organization appreciate this role. It is worth noting that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is one of the founding countries of the organization and an elected member of the Executive Council since its formation in 1997. -- SPA 21:40 LOCAL TIME 18:40 GMT 0040 www.spa.gov.sa/w1703365