UPU still intent on holding Congress in Istanbul
The Universal Postal Union (UPU) has announced that it is still intent on holding the 2016 Universal Postal Congress (UPC) in Istanbul on 20 September to 7 October.
The UPU’s Council of Administration (CA) upheld the decision to go ahead with the plans for Istanbul at an extraordinary Council meeting, where they considered Turkey’s own report on the security situation in its country and the United Nations Department of Safety and Security’s (UNDSS) risk analysis. The UNDSS report was presented by Under-Secretary-General Peter Drennan via video link from New York.
UPU Director General Bishar Hussein told the CA members: “The Turkish authorities have so far done a commendable job to ensure Congress is secure, going by the information they have shared with the UPU.”
Mehmet Ferden Carikci, the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Turkey to United Nations Organizations in Geneva, told the meeting: “Turkey remains perfectly safe.”
The CA Chairman, Faleh Al-Naemi, added: “The CA takes note of the additional security measures that Turkey commits to undertake to fully secure Congress in compliance with the requirements pointed out by UNDSS,” he said.
Turkey won the bid to host the 26th UPU Congress during the last event held in Doha, Qatar in 2012. However, as the UPU explained a statement issued yesterday (29 August), the mandate had been under review in recent months, following a series of terrorist attacks in Istanbul and the recent failed military coup.
Around 2,000 decision-makers from UPU member countries are expected to attend Congress, the supreme decision-making organ of the Union.
