Security Council Foreign Ministers Discuss Counter-Terrorism
(Adopt resolution emphasizing need for international cooperation) (1470) By Judy Aita and Laura Brown Washington File Staff Writers United Nations -- Foreign ministers of the 15 member nations of the UN Security Council unanimously adopted a new resolution on international terrorism November 12 underscoring the necessity for all nations to participate in the fight against terrorists and those who support them. The ministers held a session on counter-terrorism while at the United Nations to attend the general debate, which had been postponed after the terrorist attack on the United States September 11. During the hour-and-a-half meeting, the foreign ministers focused on the need for a determined, united, comprehensive, and sustained global strategy against terrorism that complies with the council's recent resolution 1373, aimed at cutting off finances and enhancing cooperation among law enforcement agencies. The United Nations is playing a key role in facilitating cooperation among governments against terrorism, and has been taking diplomatic, legal and political steps to advance the effort. In addition to resolution 1373, the Security Council has established a Counter-Terrorism Committee chaired by British Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock to monitor compliance with the resolution, and is the repository of 12 legal conventions on international terrorism. A comprehensive convention on international terrorism is currently being negotiated. The resolution adopted by the foreign ministers declared that international terrorism is "one of the most serious threats to international peace and security in the 21st century" and condemned "all acts, methods and practices of terrorism as criminal and unjustifiable, regardless of their motivation, in all their forms and manifestations wherever and by whomever committed." In the resolution, the ministers called on all nations "to intensify their efforts to eliminate the scourge of international terrorism. Underlying each nation's obligation to deny financial and all other forms of support and safe haven to terrorists, the council called on all states to take urgent steps to implement resolution 1373 and help each other in doing so. The ministers said they recognize that many nations will need aid in implementing all the requirements, which may pose complicated and difficult challenges to their financial and legal systems, and invited states to tell the Counter-Terrorism Committee in what areas they need support. Secretary of State Colin Powell told the council that "action is needed and action is needed now." "The United States is taking the fight against terrorism directly to the terrorists and their supporters," Powell said in his first appearance in the Security Council as secretary of state. "We have declared war on all terrorist organizations with a global reach. Because these organization are global we need the support of all of our partners in the international community." The secretary said the United States needs, in particular, the help of police forces, intelligence services and banking systems around the world to isolate and eradicate terrorists wherever they may hide. The secretary called the passage of resolution 1373 "critical action" by the council which changes fundamentally how the international community responds to terrorism. "It requires us to cooperate to target terrorist's ability to solicit and move funds, to find safe haven, to acquire, and to move across international borders," he said. Powell pointed out that the council has already supported the immediate freezing of the assets of over 120 persons and entities that the United States has identified to the Taliban sanctions committee. To be effective, resolution 1373 demands a new resolve by nations to work together bilaterally and multilaterally and also within each nation's sovereign border, the secretary said. The war on terrorism "will be fought with increased support for democracy programs, judicial reform, conflict resolution, poverty alleviation, economic reform, and health and education. All of these together deny the reason for terrorists to exist or to find safe havens within borders," Powell said, adding that vigilance must be taken with mail systems and the Internet as well. "The United States stands ready to provide technical assistance ranging from aviation security to financial tracking measures and law enforcement. We are ready at any time to exchange information about terrorism, and to cooperate in other ways to combat the common enemy," he said. Secretary General Kofi Annan said that "like war, terrorism is an immensely complicated phenomenon with multiple objectives and causes, a multitude of weapons and agents, and virtually limitless manifestations. The only common denominator among different variants of terrorism is the calculated use of deadly violence against civilians for political purposes." The secretary general said that security measures must be taken by individual nations as well as the international community as a whole. "We must now strengthen the global norms against the use or proliferation of weapons of mass destruction [and] ... strengthen controls over other types of weapons that pose grave dangers through terrorist use." "This means doing more to ensure a ban on the sale of small arms to non-state groups; making progress in eliminating landmines; improving the physical protection of sensitive industrial facilities, including nuclear and chemical plants; and increased vigilance against cyber-terrorist threats," the secretary general said. Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said that the "tragic events of September 11 in the United States of America, as well as terrorists' crimes in other countries, provide graphic evidence that in an interdependent world of the globalization era one country's grief becomes the grief for the entire international community." "I am convinced that it is the Security Council bearing the main responsibility for stability in the world which should urge to the UN General Assembly to adopt at this session the first treaty in the history of this Organization aimed at combating terrorism that uses mass destruction weapons," Ivanov said. "One cannot wait until new, even more monstrous crimes of terrorists open the eyes of those who have not yet realized the importance of an early completion of the work on that document -- the international convention for the suppression of acts of nuclear terrorism." The Russian minister added that it is necessary to enhance significantly UN peacekeeping, equipping it with up-to-date instruments for efficient crisis management. The foreign minister of Ireland, Brian Cowen said that "international terrorism can fester through our own complacency if we fail to tackle vigorously its capacity to act. We have now, at a terrible cost, learned this lesson. And we must also tackle the wider conditions -- and there are such conditions -- that allow it to survive and even flourish." "In confronting international terrorism, the world will find no better certainty of success than in looking to the United Nations. We already have a range of international conventions against terrorism. These must now be urgently ratified by all states that have not yet done so. We should also reach early agreement on the draft comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism," Cowen said. Adopting Resolution 1373 "is only part of the complex tasks that confront this organization. Others include addressing such global diseases as arms smuggling, drugs production and trafficking and money laundering," said Ukraine Foreign Minister Anatoliy Zlenko. "We have to eliminate hatred, ethnic and religious intolerance that continue to constitute a breeding ground for numerous conflicts. We have also to resolve the problems of non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, their means of delivery and related technologies. All these issues have acquired additional significance in the aftermath of recent events," Zlenko said. Singapore's foreign minister, S. Jayakumar, said that "after September 11, many governments have tightened their national practices in these areas of law enforcement. Some have passed new legislation. These are positive developments, but it also makes international coordination all the more important." "We will prevail against terrorism only through closer and deeper coordination between our law enforcement agencies," Jayakumar said. Tunisian Foreign Minister Habib Ben Yahia said that all states should cooperate to make sure that terrorist networks are not able to use the cover of civil society organizations to move freely. "In this respect, we should be very vigilant and alert to their exploitation of modern information technology to spread the culture of extremism, violence and provocation," he said. Jan Petersen, foreign minister of Norway, said that "political leadership -- our leadership -- is urgently needed in the battle against international terrorism. We must explain to our people why there are no easy solutions. ... We must explain that unless we follow our decisions and our actions through, we will play into the hands of the terrorists." Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan said that "the priority for the next stage by the Security Council should be to give full play to the role of the Counter-Terrorism Committee, with a view to monitoring and assisting member states to implement in full the Security Council resolution 1373." (The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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