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Mr. President,
We thank Ambassadors Kim, Quinlan and Loulichki, Chairmen of the Al Qaida Sanctions Committee, Counter-Terrorism Committee and 1540 Committee for their briefings today. We appreciate the efforts made by the three Committees to promote greater transparency and dialogue with Member States.
Pakistan’s comprehensive approach to counter- terrorism is based on Three D’s: deterrence, development and dialogue.
Deterrence is necessary to impede, impair, isolate and incapacitate the terrorist threat.
Development helps meet basic human needs, build community resilience, and prevent terrorism.
Dialogue is equally important. Those who are willing to renounce violence should be brought back to national and societal mainstreams.
Mr. President,
Terrorism continues to mutate into new and more sinister forms. Terrorists use new information and communication technologies and the Internet for recruitment and incitement as well as for planning and financing their activities.
We should address the root causes of terrorism. Deprivation, marginalization, exclusion, and stereotyping often create conditions for a drift to terrorism. This drift should be stemmed.
Our collective and national measures to counter all forms of financing of terrorism, including through the proceeds of organized crime and illicit narcotics, should be made more effective.
Counter-terrorism efforts need to adapt to these challenges and develop quick response strategies for real-time response.
Mr. President,
We agree with the Al Qaida Committee Chairman that Al Qaida still poses a serious threat to international peace and security. The experiment of focusing the 1989 Committee’s work on Africa is timely.
Today traditional Al Qaida is a shadow of its past. The nature of the threat, even if diffused, is much more complex. Al Qaida has splintered into disparate cells. Its affiliates thrive on local grievances. Many do not have a global agenda.
Moreover, the phenomenon of individuals radicalized by extremist websites is not always based on their formal association with or membership of Al Qaida or other terrorist groups. In many instances, terrorists do not require elaborate financing arrangements or visits of terrorists to training camps and safe havens. All they need is electronic safe havens and some websites for inspiration and training material.
We hope that while addressing traditional issues like travel ban and assets freeze in an effective manner, the Committee would also pay due attention to the changing forms of the threat from the Al Qaida affiliates and self-radicalized individuals, or ‘lone wolves’.
We appreciate the recent efforts to introduce fair and clear procedures in the Al-Qaida Committee and strengthen the role of the Ombudsperson. It remains to be seen whether these changes would satisfy the courts around the world because the legal community is more inclined to see verifiable evidence which could be acceptable in a court of law. The questions of due process and effective remedy are at the heart of courts’ deliberations.
We hope that the Ombudsperson’s positive contribution would have a demonstration effect for other sanctions regimes.
We support the work of the Monitoring Team to update narrative summaries of reasons for listing. We welcome its new head Mr Alexander Evans.
Mr. President,
We support the Counter Terrorism Committee’s efforts for building capacities of States to implement Security Council resolutions 1373 and 1624. We appreciate that the Committee's focus on the ‘use of new communication technologies' and ‘technical assistance in the Sahel region’ in its planned special events this year.
We commend Mr Mike Smith's outstanding leadership of the Counter Terrorism Executive Directorate (CTED). The CTED has done substantial work to update the format of the preliminary implementation assessment (PIA). Even if all questions of the newly introduced Detailed Implementation Survey are not strictly based on Security Council resolutions 1373 and 1624, we are confident that it would prove to be a useful diagnostic tool for facilitation of technical assistance to Member States.
The CTED’s seminars on specific themes in various regions have been useful. We are planning to hold a regional workshop on counter-terrorism in Islamabad for police officers, prosecutors and judges in South Asia in the near future.
Mr. President,
Pakistan has made considerable progress to counter terrorist financing and border control. We have deployed 150,000 troops on Pak-Afghan border and have set up 822 posts to interdict Al-Qaida/Taliban members.
Pakistan has become a party to the UN Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism and has enacted a landmark Anti Money Laundering Law. A Financial Monitoring Unit has been established in the State Bank of Pakistan to track suspicious financial transactions. Hundreds of bank accounts have been frozen. We are implementing the recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force. We are an active member of the Asia Pacific Group on Money Laundering. Since last briefing to the Council, Pakistan Parliament has passed two new laws on Counter-Terrorism and National Counter Terrorism Authority.
Mr. President,
Full and effective implementation of Resolution 1540 by all States remains one of the key tools to prevent proliferation of WMDs by non-state actors. The 1540 Committee and its Group of Experts play an important and complementary role to the treaty-based regimes and international organizations in the field of non-proliferation.
We support the efforts undertaken by the 1540 Committee and its experts in areas such as awareness raising, outreach, implementation, assistance and capacity building.
We commend the Group of Experts's valuable assistance to the Committee. We especially recognize the professional contribution of Mr. Terrence Taylor and his able associates.
The long-term impact and success of the 1540 Committee, in our view, depends on the role that the Committee can play in mobilizing assistance for Member States. Assistance and capacity building ought to be the Committee’s pivot to ensure effective national implementation by States.
We support efforts to promote cooperation and coordination among the subsidiary bodies of the Council. This objective would best be served when such joint activities are consistent with the mandate, independence and nature of work of each subsidiary body and the experts groups.
I thank you Mr. President.