UAE to Chair KP for Second Time
November 08, 22
(IDEX Online) - UAE is to chair the Kimberley Process again in 2024.
Delegates at a plenary session in Botswana, which currently chairs KP, approved the move last week.
Belarus had also applied for the position, according to a Reuters report, at a time when KP faces mounting pressure to consider broadening its definition of conflict diamonds to include Russia
Zimbabwe will chair KP fort the first time since the organization was founded to outlaw conflict diamonds in 2003.
Zimbabwe has faced widespread allegations of corruption and brutality in the Marange diamond fields.
It was appointed vice chair for 2022 with no objections at the Kimberley Process plenary in Moscow and goes on, as a matter of course to chair KP in 2023.
UAE, which chaired KP in 2016, was selected as vice chair at the Botswana plenary, and will become chair in 2024.
KP was established by the United Nations to ensure that unregulated rough diamonds do not enter the legitimate diamond market to finance conflict.
Pic shows Almas Tower, home to the Dubai Diamond Exchange