Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East                
Home Page
About SESAME
SESAME Council
NewsEvents
Directorate
Committees
SESAME Staff
SESAME Users
Activities
Desigen Parameters
Publications
Training
Press
Jobs
Links
Links
Host Institute
Al-Balqa Applied University
SESAME COUNCIL Interim Council Meeting
4th Meeting of the International (Interim) Council
Yervan, Armenia, 9-10 November 2000
The Interim Council of the SESAME project held its 4th meeting on 9-10 November 2000 in Yerevan, Armenia. The meeting was chaired by Professor Herwig Schopper, President of the Interim Council. It was attended by delegates representing Armenia, Egypt, Greece, Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority, the Co-Chairs of the Technical, Scientific and Financial Committees and UNESCO staff, including the Assistant Director-General for Natural Science a.i., the Secretary of the Interim Council and representatives of the Teheran and Amman Offices. Observers and invited guests included representatives from the German and USA government, Uppsala University in Sweden, Daresbury Laboratory in the UK and the Russian Academy of Science.
  1. A Search Committee was established to identify candidates for the post of Technical Director of the SESAME facility. The Committee is chaired by Professor G.-A. Voss, Co-Chair of the Technical Committee, and consists of Professor N. G. Alexandropoulos (Greece), Professor I. Khubeis (Jordan), Ambassador K. Nazarian (Armenia), Professor H.M. Roushdy El-Kady (Egypt) and Professor Salman Salman (Palestinian Authority).
  2. The guiding principles for preparing the SESAME Statutes should be:
    • The International Center for Synchrotron-Light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East, referred to as SESAME, should be established as a functionally independent Center under the auspices of UNESCO.
    • SESAME will define and implement its program according to its stated purpose (to be defined in Article 2 of the Draft Statutes) and within the frameworks of the budget adopted by its Council (to be defined in Article 5 of the Draft Statutes).
    • The IC requests the Director-General of UNESCO to assist the IC in taking the necessary steps towards the establishment of the Center and in finalizing its Draft Statutes taking into account the UNESCO practices. After approval of the final draft by the IC, the Director-General is requested to submit the SESAME Center proposal to the governing bodies of UNESCO as soon as possible for approval. In the case the governing bodies would wish to make modifications, they should invite the Director-General to submit these suggestions for modifications to the IC for reconsideration.
    The Interim Council will continue to act according to the Draft Statutes and invites UNESCO to continue to give the necessary administrative and technical support.
  3. The Jordanian Delegation made the following statement:
    "Jordan has approached many Arab countries to join SESAME and is still working in this direction. Some of these countries were visited in the past three months to promote the project and elicit their participation. Some of these promising countries are: Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Sudan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and United Arab Emirates. Communications with these countries are still under process, and we are looking forward for some more time to come to fruitful conclusions. Jordan will take the responsibility to raise the funds for the construction of the necessary building for the machine from internal or external sources".
    Taking into account this statement and the ensuing discussions, the IC came to the conclusion that the project can be realized in Amman provided the foreseen initiatives will be concluded successfully. According to the request of the German government, this should be achieved by 15 January 2001.
  4. Having listened to the statement of the Delegation of Armenia concerning its fund raising activities with donors, and also having considered the importance for a consensus decision so as to achieve a decision for a regional network for SESAME collaboration implying the setting up of a separate machine in Armenia, and in view of the benefit for science provided by a second machine, the IC asked the Technical Committee to set up a working group to prepare a proposal for a synchrotron radiation source of an energy between 2 and 3 GeV to be located at YerPhy in Armenia. The IC asked the Scientific Committee to make the necessary preparations to identify a user community. The results should then be integrated into a common proposal. The IC asks the Drafting Committee to integrate this project into the SESAME Statutes. The above-mentioned reports should be submitted to the next meeting of the IC for consideration. The IC is of the opinion that both projects will benefit from such an integrated programme.
  5. The 5th meeting of the Interim Council will be held in Cairo on 12-13 March 2000. It will be organized by the Egyptian delegation in cooperation with the UNESCO Regional Office in Cairo.