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45.

The Assembly Hall: Past, Present and Future

WELCOMING ADDRESS
BY MR VLADIMIR PETROVSKY
UNITED NATIONS UNDER-SECRETARY-GENERAL
DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE UNITED NATIONS OFFICE AT GENEVA
SECRETARY-GENERAL OF THE CONFERENCE ON DISARMAMENT
ON THE OCCASION OF THE INAUGURATION OF THE NEWLY
RENOVATED ASSEMBLY HALL

Palais des Nations, Tuesday, 16 April 1996

Excellencies,
Colleagues,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Dear Friends,
t is a pleasure for me to join you today inside the newly renovated
I Assembly Hall, for which many of you laboured with skill and

dedication to bring
results are impressive. about. It was a major undertaking and the

The timing of this inauguration is most propitious. For in just two days'
time, it will be exactly 50 years since the President of the Assembly, Carl
J. Hambro of Norway, stood at the same podium where I stand now, pounded
his gavel and declared the close of the League of Nations' twenty-first and
last General Assembly.

The United Nations subsequently took possession of the League's physical
assets of which the Palais des Nations was the most precious. The building

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