An official website of the United States government
An official website of the United States government
The U.S. Delegation to the Conference on Disarmament advances U.S. national security through multilateral diplomacy. It seeks to negotiate and implement effective nonproliferation, arms control, and disarmament agreements in international fora, in particular in the Conference on Disarmament (CD). The Delegation is led by its Permanent Representative, Ambassador Bruce I. Turner, confirmed by the Senate on September 16, 2022.
The CD is the world’s sole standing multilateral disarmament negotiating body; it and its predecessor bodies have negotiated such landmark treaties as the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Biological Weapons Convention, and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. The CD is comprised of 65 member states. It was established in its current form by the United Nations General Assembly in 1979 and meets annually in Geneva in a three-part session.
The U.S. Permanent Representative also heads the U.S. interagency delegation to the UN General Assembly’s First Committee on Disarmament and International Security, which meets annually in New York. The Delegation plays a significant role in U.S. participation in meetings associated with the NPT, with a focus on the NPT’s disarmament pillar and P5-related activities.
Ambassador Bruce Turner
Permanent Representative, U.S. Delegation to the Conference on Disarmament
Bruce Turner took the oath of office to be the U.S. Permanent Representative to the Conference on Disarmament on September 16, 2022, following confirmation by the U.S. Senate.
Prior to that, as a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, class of Minister-Counselor, Ambassador Turner was the Senior Bureau Official in the Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance (AVC), where he worked from July 2015 to September 2021 as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Verification, Planning and European Security.
Ambassador Turner’s career abroad included assignments to Paris, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kabul, Vienna at the U.S. Mission to the OSCE, Brussels at the U.S. Mission to NATO, and Ankara. In Washington he worked on North Korean as well as European security affairs. Ambassador Turner speaks German, French, and Russian. He has an M.A. and Ph.D. in German literature from the University of Virginia.
