APS : Saturday, 07 April 2018
ALGIERS-A high-level meeting on “the fight against terrorism funding” will take place on Monday and Tuesday in Algiers with the participation of representatives of African states, organizations and international experts,
who will focus on strategic issues of collective concern to states as well as counterterrorism means and methods.
Co-organized by Algeria and the African Union (AU), the meeting will bring together delegates of the African Union (AU) member countries, the United Nations (UN), the European Union (EU) and other international and regional organizations active in the fight against terrorism and its funding.
Representatives of the five members of the UN Security Council will attended the meeting that be opened by Foreign Minister Abdelkader Messahel.
Algiers’ counterterrorism meeting was decided “at the Summit of the Heads of State and Government of the AU Peace and Security Council in September 2014 and confirmed by an AU Summit,” Foreign Minister Abdelkader Messahel said.
Messahel called the meeting “very important in the current context to adopt African positions, exchange our views on our countries’ legislations and indentify the role of our institutions in the fight against money laundering and all kinds of trafficking.”
Participants will also discuss the real challenges posed by terrorism funding and many topical issues in Africa like the drying up of violent radicalism and terrorism sources as well as the connections between drug, arms and human trafficking and the scourge of terrorism.
Moreover, the meeting is part of Algeria’s efforts to combat terrorism in the Sahel region, dry up its resources and enhance cooperation and consultation between African countries on security-related issues, like counterterrorism, de-radicalization, human and drug trafficking, and smuggling.
Algeria hosted many conferences and meetings on terrorism-related issues, like the high-level Conference on terrorism co-organized with the AU in Oran in last December.
Speaking in the meeting of the Global Counterterrorism Forum (GCTF) held in Algiers in last October, Messahel also stressed the need to work together to drying up the multiple sources of terrorism funding, including hostage-taking for ransom, the various forms of transnational organized crime, human trafficking and money laundering.
