UAE urges UN to tackle obstacles hindering the war against terror

The United Arab Emirates yesterday urged the international community to boost joint efforts to willfully and strongly tackle the obstacles hindering the total eradication of terror. The country also called for systematic, objective, balanced and transparent review of the definition of terrorism to facilitate international consensus on the definition of the phenomenon.

In a statement delivered by Anwar Othman Barout Saleem Al-Barout, Acting Charge d'Affairs at the UAE Mission at the UN headquarters here in New York during the 119th '&' 120th plenary meetings of the sixty-second General Assembly; Mr. Al-Barout said all countries needed to strengthen regional and international cooperation to remove 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. States should analyze 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 stated.

He said the role of the United Nations should be enhanced and the Task Force institutionalized. 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.

Following the two-day debate, the General Assembly renewed its unwavering commitment to strengthen international cooperation to prevent and combat terrorism, and, recalling its pivotal role in following up on implementation of the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, it called on member states and the organization to accelerate their efforts to implement it in all its aspects. R11; Emirates News Agency, WAM