! Commissioner, we've had our hearing.

We shall resume again in about three minutes' time.

I cannot anticipate the possibility of our meeting beyond tomorrow afternoon.

It is indeed an honour to have His Excellency Mr. Alberto Romulo presiding over our session today.

At this stage, let me open the floor to discuss this new development that has arisen in our meeting.

Mr. Katti (Algeria) (spoke in French) Let me say, Mr. Secretary, how very pleased we are to see you among us, presiding over our meeting.

Our colleagues in the United Nations Secretariat have been helpful and contributed substantively to the outcome of our meeting today.

The President We shall hear the remaining speakers in the debate on this item at our next meeting.

We believe that his proposal would much better reflect what has actually taken place during our organizational meeting.

Lesotho is happy to see him presiding as we all warmly welcome the new democratic South Africa back into the United Nations fold.

Therefore, I would now like to adjourn the formal plenary meeting of the Conference and resume our meeting in an informal format five minutes from now.

I wish to welcome Mr. Covic, President of the Coordination Centre of Serbia and Montenegro and of the Republic of Serbia for Kosovo and Metohija, to our meeting today.

The PRESIDENT Next week, on Tuesday, we will have our next plenary meeting at 10 a.m. in this room.

We have therefore asked for action on the draft resolution to be postponed until our next meeting, and we thank you, Mr. Chairman, for having accommodated us on that matter.

I would like now therefore to bid an official farewell to our distinguished colleague, who is unfortunately not here, but I am sure that the representative of Pakistan will convey to Ambassador Umer what I am going to say now.

In accordance with the requests for hearing granted at our 1431st meeting, I shall now invite Mr. Scott to take a place at the petitioners apos table and to address the Committee.

Our meeting is an opportune moment to review what has been accomplished and the obstacles encountered in implementing the World Programme since it was adopted 10 years ago.

Before giving the floor to the speakers, I would like to extend a warm welcome to the Nagasaki Peace Messengers and the citizens of Nagasaki accompanying them who are here with us today to follow our plenary meeting.

Does any delegation wish to take the floor, nevertheless, at this stage of the formal, plenary part of our meeting? That does not seem to be the case.

But if I detect no desire now to have a meeting on Thursday, our next meeting will take place on Tuesday, 15 February at 10 a.m.

That is why I proposed having our meeting in the afternoon instead of in the morning, in order to give the people involved in negotiations with capitals time to come up with something so that we can move forward.

The Secretary General's report recognizes some progress made on his recommendations within the competence of the General Assembly since our last debate on small arms, at our 4896th meeting, one year ago.

Mr. Elzimaity (Egypt) (interpretation from Arabic) Now that the General Assembly has adopted the draft resolution contained in paragraph 7 of document A 48 801 Add.2, my delegation would like to record its position, which is based on the following points.

The President (interpretation from French) On behalf of the Committee, I should like once again to thank His Excellency the President of the General Assembly, Her Excellency the President of the Security Council and the Representative of the Secretary General for having participated in the first part of our meeting.

At our next meeting, to be held on Monday, 19 September, which should also be our last meeting of the session, I should like to report briefly to the Assembly on the consultations carried out in the implementation of resolution 48 162.

Mr. CAUGHLEY (New Zealand) As my delegation said at our previous plenary meeting, we attach high importance to beginning negotiations on a fissile material cut off treaty, and we have done so for many years.

I should also like to inform the Committee that the presentation of the 2005 United Nations Disarmament Fellowship Programme certificates will take place in this conference room immediately after our meeting, and I urge members to remain in the room to witness the presentation.

In order to enable the Assembly to consider directly in plenary meeting matters relating to the Ad Hoc Intergovernmental Working Group of Experts, the Assembly would have to reconsider the decision taken at our 3rd plenary meeting on the allocation of this item.