ISLAMABAD, Nov 20: Pakistan’s permanent representative to the United Nations mission in Geneva, Masood Khan, was elected president of the 6th review conference of biological weapons on Monday.

This is the first time that Pakistan has been elected as the president of a review conference of the three key treaties dealing with global security and disarmament issues.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who inaugurated the five-yearly conference in Geneva on Monday, expressed the hope that the states parties meeting for the next three weeks would make progress in the area of security and disarmament relating to biological weapons, according to a dispatch received from Geneva.

In his statement after the election, Ambassador Khan said: “Biological weapons are a real, potent threat to humanity. They are weapons of mass destruction that may be as deadly as nuclear weapons or even deadlier.”

He warned that the threat of biological weapons was growing.

“We face the threat of terrorists acquiring and using biological weapons. New weapons will be more potent, easier to hide, and harder to combat,” he said..—Q.A