UAE urges tougher fight against terror

New York: The United Arab Emirates on Saturday urged the international community to boost joint efforts to wilfully and effectively tackle the obstacles hindering the total eradication of terrorism.

The country also called for a systematic, objective, balanced and transparent review of the definition of terrorism to facilitate international consensus on its definition.

UN headquarters

In a statement delivered by Anwar Othman Barout Salem Al Barout, Acting Charge d'Affairs at the UAE Mission at the UN headquarters in New York during the 119th and 120th plenary meetings of the 62nd General Assembly, he said all countries needed to strengthen regional and international cooperation to remove the obstacles to progress in fighting terrorism.

"The strategy was an important development in the global effort, but the strategy was running into problems because there was no review of the state of the phenomenon and no definition for it," he said.

Analyse strategy

"States should analyse the strategy to identify weaknesses.

"They should adopt institutional measures to enable them to work with the Task Force in an open and transparent manner," he added.

He said the role of the United Nations should be enhanced.

He also asked for the Task Force to be institutionalised. Technical capacities should be built to enable states to take part in the global effort.

He pointed out that states should also take measures to ensure that they never identified terrorism with any single group in statements and they should institute legislative and other measures against hatred-related activities.

Further, the United Nations must intensify its lead in efforts to reverse the conditions that lead to terrorist extremism.

"The UAE has introduced legislation and conducted educational initiatives to ensure that all possible measures were taken against extremism, including through cooperation with Interpol," he stated.

Acceleration

Following the two-day debate, the General Assembly renewed its unwavering commitment to strengthen international cooperation in preventing and combating terrorism.

It is also recalling its pivotal role in following up on implementation of the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, calling on member states and the organisation to accelerate their efforts to implement it in all its aspects.