Qatar’s strong support for UN efforts in fighting terror hailed

Doha: Vladimir Ivanovich Voronkov, Undersecretary for United Nations Counter-Terrorism Office, has stressed that Qatar is a major financial contributor to the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism.

He pointed out that Qatar provides a strong support to the Office and there is close and active cooperation with Qatar in enhancing the efforts of combating violent extremism and Qatar will also host 2022 FIFA World Cup, which would in turn participate towards pushing forward the counter-terrorism activities.

Vornokov was speaking during his presentation of the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy at the Permanent Committee on Peace and International Security held yesterday within the 140th Assembly of IPU, which is taking place in Doha.

The Committee discussed a draft resolution entitled ‘the inadmissibility of the use of mercenaries as a tool for undermining peace and violating human rights’.

Voronkov stressed that cooperation of parliamentarians is inevitable for strengthening counter-terrorism efforts, which need support and assistance from parliaments by enacting national legislation that enhances the effectiveness of combating terrorism and violent extremism.

He said that the phenomenon of terrorism has become politicised and many of the victims of terrorism are women and children. “Many countries refuse to accept returnees from terrorist organisations to their hometown. We must look for the best ways to address this, because it is a complicated matter,” said Voronkov.

He noted that the United Nations will host the first world conference on victims of terrorism in June 2019. He stressed on the importance of listening to them to achieve success and focus on prevention as a key step in the fight against terrorism.

Rapporteurs of the committee Khalid Bakkar of Jordan and B Tarasyuk of Ukraine stressed that one of the biggest threats were terrorism and conflicts as they undermine peace, security, sovereignty and territorial integrity of states.

The past 20 years have witnessed an increase in casualties as a result of both armed conflicts and terrorist attacks. From 2011 to 2014, the number of deaths from armed conflict rose by 356 percent, while the number of deaths from terrorism rose by 353 percent.

They highlighted that children and young people have become the main recruiting target for terrorists. In fact, with the development of technology, recruiting methods are becoming increasingly complex, and so the fight against recruitment and its methods must be strengthened at the national and international levels. They said that since 2013, some 50 countries around the world have enacted laws and regulations to prevent their citizens from joining extremist armed groups such as ISIS. Most of these measures have been taken in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 2178 of 2014.

For his part, Al Bakar said that limited studies confirmed that 30,000 people joined extremist terrorist organisations, mostly women and children. “It is a very dangerous signal which requires the parliamentarians to play an important role to take measures to prevent the aggravation of this phenomenon.”

وزير الخارجية يجتمع مع وكيل الأمين العام للأمم المتحدة لشؤون مكافحة الإرهاب

اجتمع سعادة الشيخ محمد بن عبدالرحمن آل ثاني نائب رئيس مجلس الوزراء وزير الخارجية، اليوم، مع سعادة السيد فلاديمير فورونكوف وكيل الأمين العام للأمم المتحدة لشؤون مكافحة الإرهاب، وذلك على هامش اجتماعات الجمعية العامة الـ (140) للاتحاد البرلماني الدولي المنعقدة بالدوحة.