Arab countries formalize anti-terrorism agreement procedures

Next Thursday Dr. Esmat Abdel Meguid, the secretary general of the Arab League (AL), and Dr. Ahmed Mohammed Al Salem, the secretary general of the Council of the Arab Interior Ministers (CAIM), will inaugurate the joint meeting of the two committees, which are subdivisions of the CAIM and the Council of the Arab Justice Ministers (CAJM). The meeting is going to be dedicated to rephrasing the text of the Arab Anti-Terrorism Agreement.

In its last session held in Cairo in the spring of last year, the CAJM referred the aforementioned draft agreement to the CAIM for its comments.

After a discussion in which security officials from the Arab countries participated, the CAJM in its last session held in Tunis at the beginning of last year decided to ask the general secretariat of the CAIM to form an open-membership committee to study and categorize the suggestions submitted by the ministries of interior. The two committees will meet in order to rephrase the text of the draft agreement to get it to take its final shape, and to cover both the security and the judicial sides of dealing with terrorism.

Counselor Wahid Al Tawila, the CAIM spokesman, said that the committee held two meetings in Tunis in which the security side of the draft was laid down in the light of the views and suggestions submitted in this concern. Some modifications were made to the judicial side of the draft.

Al Tawila said that in their next meeting the two committees will have the original text of the agreement in addition to the results reached by the committee subdivided of CAIM. He confirmed that there is much optimism for the success of the two committees to perform their mission so that the draft will be rephrased according to the suggestions offered. The draft will then be submitted to the CAIM in its next session at the beginning of next year for ratification in preparation to take the necessary measures for its application.

He added that Arab countries attach great importance to the agreement on combating terrorism and in reducing the dangers it causes, whether to human beings or properties.

CAIM adopted effective measures in combating terrorism. It ratified the Arab strategy for combating terrorism, which stipulated requiring the general secretariat to put a plan to implement the agreement. A draft for this plan was prepared earlier.

The draft of this plan will be submitted to the CAIM in which the Arab interior ministers will participate to ratify it. It is constituted of a number of scientific measures that would strengthen the cooperation between the Arab countries to curb the phenomenon of terrorism and the tragedies it causes.

Arab interior ministers consider this a very important matter.