MENACS has been busy this quarter - in August, the team met in Prague, Czech Republic, for our 4 ^th  annual meeting to review the previous year's activities and participate in a Middle East Next Steps Task Force funded by  the  Ploughshares   Fund. The Task Force  exam ined  ongoing changes in the Middle East and identif ied  projects to promote regional cooperation and areas where regional states could reduce threat perceptions and mistrust.   MENACS members contributed suggestions for activities  and  projects that could facilitate a future regional peace and security dialogue and framework. 

Many network members also participated in a Middle East Chemical Weapons Task Force. The Task Force comprised of policy and technical experts from ten countries in the Middle East convened in 2016-17 to discuss chemical weapons acquisition and use in the region and to identify next steps to more effectively address this threat. The Task Force reached an agreed joint statement and 47 different potential regional capacity-building and cooperative steps to prevent, detect, and respond to chemical weapons acquisition and use in the region. The full report of the Task Force is featured below and can also be found here. 

In addition, several MENACS  members attended and presented at the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty Organization's 2017 Science & Technology Conference. 

Looking ahead, the Network will be attending a training at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in early 2018, where  the group will be trained on advanced verification technologies .

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