Sri Lanka asks UN to help develop illegal weapons collection programme

Following a request by the Government of Sri Lanka, a team of United Nations experts is in Colombo to help develop a proposal for an illegal weapons collection programme in the southern part of the country, a UN spokesman said today in New York.

The small evaluation team, currently in Colombo on a weeklong mission, is led by the UN Department for Disarmament Affairs (DDA) and includes representatives from the UN Department for Political Affairs and the UN Department for Economic and Social Affairs.

Building upon an earlier UN weapons collection effort in Albania, the mission offers another example of how the world body is working to assist in the implementation of the action plan adopted last July at the UN Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All its Aspects, the spokesman said.