Press release of the Inter-Parliamentary Union
Istanbul, 15 April 1996
N°4

The 95th Inter-Parliamentary Conference, meeting in Istanbul from 15 to 19 April 1996, chose on its opening day to discuss fighting terrorism as its third main topic.

Proposed by Egypt and entitled "Fighting terrorism, an international phenomenon which threatens democracy and human rights as well as international peace and security and which hampers development; measures needed on the national and international levels to prevent acts of terrorism", the topic received 834 votes in favour, 101 against and 473 abstentions.

It narrowly beat a proposal by United Kingdom, Belgium, Canada and Switzerland on a world-wide ban on land mines (830 in favour, 50 against and 519 abstentions). Other proposals concerned the rejection by parliaments of the US Helms-Burton Law on tighter economic sanctions against Cuba (proposed by Cuba and received 547 in favour, 177 against and 675 abstentions) and the support of parliaments for speeding-up negociations on a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty (proposed by Iran and received 302 in favour, 160 against and 922 abstentions).

A proposal by the Arab Inter-Parliamentary Union on behalf of the Arab parliaments to include an emergency supplementary item, entitled "Halt to the Israeli attacks on Lebanon", was rejected by the Conference. Although it received a majority of 449 votes against 300, and 390 abstentions, it did not obtain the required four-fifth majority to be accepted as an additional topic of debate.

The President of the Turkish Grand National Assembly (TGNA), Dr Mustafa Kalemli, was elected by acclamation Chairman of the 95th Inter-Parliamentary Conference at the opening of its work in the Ciragan Palace on Monday 15 April 1996.

The Conference, organized by the 133-nation Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) -- the world organization of parliaments -- is being hosted by the TGNA. It is the largest gathering of MPs world-wide, with 614 parliamentarians from 116 countries registered to take part.

The Inter-Parliamentary Council, the governing body of the IPU, meeting on 15 April before the start of the 95th Inter-Parliamentary Conference, suspended the affiliation of Niger in the IPU because its Parliament had ceased to function. This reduced the number of IPU member-parliaments to 133.