02 Feb. 2023 (QT)

By ASHRAF SIDDIQUI

Qatar may be geographically small but the country has played a big role in fighting terrorism and is a perfect place for parliamentarian assemblies around the world to work from here, Duarte Pacheco, president of Union Interparlementaire, Portugal, has said.

The Third Coordination Meeting of Parliamentary Assemblies and Parliamentary Policy Dialogue on Counter Terrorism was held at Hotel Sheraton Grand Doha recently. Earlier, two meetings were held in Doha and in Naples, Italy.

The two-day meeting was attended by 60 representatives including eight on-line representing 16 parliamentarian assemblies from across the world.

Talking to the writer on the sidelines of the coordination meeting, Mauro Miedico, Deputy Director, United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism and Chief, Special Projects and Innovation Branch, said: “First of all we are most thankful to the Shura Council for its great efforts and all kinds of support in fighting against terrorism,” he said.

“We have a fantastic cooperation with the State of Qatar and we established a unique office of UN Counter-Terrorism here in Doha more than a year and a half ago. That’s about engaging parliamentarian assemblies to fight terrorism from Doha office.”

He added, “The Qatar government has been most supportive of our office. I am most pleased from the support and cooperation of Hassan bin Abdulla Al Ghanim, Speaker of the Shura Council and Ahmed bin Abdullah Al Mahmoud, the previous speaker, for bringing the ties at really very high levels.

“It was a close meeting to discuss cooperation, coordination and work plan. We are promoting work plan for each assembly and they are following on organising very important active initiatives and working with their own parliamentarians.

“We have also discussed the importance of cooperation and coordination among countries on the legal frameworks on preventing and combating terrorism on border security, “and the role of parliamentarians for enhancing legislation in their respective assemblies and countries to get implemented; that’s the reason we are here”.

Talking on the outcome of previous meetings, he said, “We have established a unique coordination of all parliamentarian assemblies. We started with eight assemblies and today we are covering assemblies all around the world by having 16 parliamentarian assemblies on the platform.”

He informed: “We have launched a number of processes, particularly working deeply with all African countries to prevent and fight terrorism on the African continent. In this regard, we have also created a working group of African parliamentarians for Africa.”

The top official of the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism said they have launched a number of initiatives focusing also on essential aspects pertaining to youth involvement, strengthening resilience, focusing on education, employment, reinforcement of security, and engaging women parliamentarians in the fight against terrorism.

“In this regard, there will be a major conference in Doha in May with Madam Deputy Speaker of Shura Council Dr. Hamda bint Hassan Al Sulaiti, as our lead.”

Duarte Pacheco said, “this is a very important meeting because terrorism is like a cancer, and may appear anywhere. We may belong to a poor or rich country but we have to live together to fight this cancer.”

Meanwhile, talking to the writer, Dmitriy Kobitskiy, Secretary General, Head of the IPA CIS Council Secretariat, said nine countries’ assemblies are members of our organisation of the Euro-Asian region and this topic is very important for all of them. “This is third time that we took part in this important event and we look forward to see good outcome from this meeting.

“We also hold bi-annual conference on counter-terrorism in our region where we discuss this topic. Unfortunately, this problem does not go away, rather increasing every year in many countries.”

Talking about Qatar’s role in fighting counter-terrorism, the Head of the member nations of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), said Qatar is the forging force which is helping in united efforts in fighting terrorism.

“We have been earlier focusing on cooperation within CIS parliaments and later with the European parliaments, but this platform has widened the scope of cooperation with the Asian, Latin American and other regions which is very important. I believe efforts of counter-terrorism will be further uniting parliamentarians around the world.”