Statement by Dr. Md. Monwar Hossain, Deputy Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the UN in New York at the First reading of the Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy Resolution, 09 March 2023

Thank you for giving me the floor.

 

At the outset I warmly congratulate Ambassador Bob Rae, and Ambassador Tarek Ladeb, on their appointment as the co-facilitators for this important assignment. My delegation aligns itself with the statement made by Saudi Arabia on behalf of OIC.  Allow me to share few additional thoughts in my national capacity.

Firstly: Bangladesh maintains a stringent policy of ‘zero tolerance’ towards terrorism and violent extremism. We are a party to all international counter-terrorism instruments. Our government has made it clear that our territory would not be allowed to be used by any operatives to incite or cause terrorist acts or harm to our neighbours.

Following the adoption of the UN Global Counter Terrorism Strategy in 2006, Bangladesh has put in place comprehensive laws, namely, the ‘Anti-Terrorism Act and the ‘Money Laundering Prevention Act. We are also in the process of drafting the first National Counter-Terrorism Strategy in line with the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy.

As such, the UN Counter Terrorism Strategy bears critical importance for the Government of Bangladesh to adopt measures at the local level and support the global efforts to prevent and counter terrorism.

Secondly: The Biennial Review Mechanism of the Strategy helps to make it a living document with necessary updates of the global phenomenon. However, it is imperative to keep the document as precise as possible for the ease of analysis and implementation.  Let me share a simple statistic. In the 5th review, we had 73 OPs, in the 6th review, it went up to 85 and in the 7th, it further went to 119. If the number of OPs increases at this rate for each review, after 5/6 more reviews, we will produce a very big volume of this strategy paper.

Therefore, during this review we may work on removing some of the PP, OPs if those were time bound and no more relevant.  I know that the facilitator of the resolution on Ocean and Law of the Sea is working with members to streamline the resolution to make it concise.

Third:  After identifying the underlying root causes of any form of terrorism, we should focus more on solutions in the form of international cooperation. For my country Bangladesh, capacity building and training of counter-terrorism personnel is crucial. In addition to the seamless exchange of information among member states, investment in prevention strategy, developing national information and communication toolkit, access to global financial support are also important priorities for us in our counter-terrorism efforts. 

Finally, we need international solidarity and concerted efforts at every level, everywhere, to fight terrorism.  We hope that the review exercise would focus to produce a good policy document. Bangladesh delegation stands ready to provide all supports to the co-facilitators for a successful review of the Strategy.

I thank you all.