Pakistan has welcomed the creation of the new UN Counter Terrorism
Office and congratulated Russia on the appointment of veteran Russian
diplomat Vladimir Ivanovich Voronkov as the Under-Secretary General for
the newly established office.
Speaking in a meeting of the Advisory Board of the UN’s Counter
Terrorism Center, Pakistan’s Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi said that she
hoped the new office will bring better coordination and coherence across
the UN system on counter terrorism, according to a press release issued
by the Pakistan Mission to the U.N.
Pakistan, she said, expected the new office to also play an important
role to improve coordination in counter terrorism related capacity
building assistance to the Member States, on their request, as well as
in balanced implementation of the UN’s Global Counter Terrorism Strategy
across its
four pillars.
She said Pakistan looks forward to working closely with the new
established office and will provide all possible assistance to the new
Under Secretary General in implementation of the mandate provide to him
by the General Assembly.
The new UN Office of Counter Terrorism (OCT), was established following
the adoption by the General Assembly of a resolution by consensus on 15
June 2017. Its creation represents the first major reform of the UN
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to be implemented since his
assumption
of office.
On 21 June 2017, the Secretary General appointed Vladimir Ivanovich
Voronkov, the Russian Ambassador in Vienna, as the Under-Secretary
General to lead the OCT.
Pakistan is a member of the Advisory Board of the UN’s Counter Terrorism
Center, whose recent meeting reviewed the UN body’s work.
In her remarks, Ambassador Lodhi emphasized that the need for the UNCCT
to develop a greater understanding of various terrorist movements, their
specific motivations, objectives, organizations and modus operandi. "We
cannot build an effective response without such understanding.”
The Pakistani envoy appreciated the UNCCT’s work and stated that it had
played an important role in developing programmes and projects for
enhancing capacity and capabilities of the member states to respond to
the growing threat of terrorism at global, regional and national level.
She told the participants of the meeting that since its inception the
UNCCT had come a long way, and had worked to create synergies within the
UN bodies by adopting an ‘all of the UN’ approach. The UNCCT’s wide
ranging programmes including border security and management, assistance
to member states in terrorist designations and assets freezing, youth
empowerment initiatives and various other programs have helped build the
technical capacity of Member States in combating terrorism.
Going forward, she said, it is also important that the UNCCT’s projects
and programmes keep pace with the rapidly evolving and multi-faceted
threat posed by terrorist and extremist ideologies. In this regard, it
is important that member states are encouraged to take the initiative in
identifying their specific needs, which could then then be addressed by
the UNCCT through close coordination and consultation with the
respective states.
Apart from Pakistan, the members of the Advisory Board include Saudi
Arabia, Algeria, Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, China, Egypt, France,
Germany, India, Indonesia, Morocco, Nigeria, Norway, Russia, Spain,
Switzerland, Turkey, UK, US, and the EU (as guest member).