OSCE Centre in Bishkek hosts expert meeting for anti-terrorism agencies

BISHKEK, 27 July 2012 – Exchanging expertise and enhancing co-operation and co-ordination on anti-terrorism issues was the topic of a two-day OSCE expert meeting that concluded today in Bishkek. The discussion was organized jointly by the OSCE Centre in Bishkek, the Transnational Threats Department of the OSCE Secretariat and the Anti-Terrorism Centre of Kyrgyzstan’s State Committee of National Security (SCNS).

The event brought together some 30 representatives of the SCNS, the OSCE Secretariat, the Anti-Terrorism Centre of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Regional Anti-Terrorism Council of the Shanghai Co-operation Organization and relevant state agencies of other OSCE participating States, including France, Georgia, Poland, Spain, Turkey and Ukraine.

Participants discussed initiatives and challenges such as filling in legal gaps to more efficiently combat new terrorist methods and threats, procedures of setting up national anti-terrorism centres and their organizational schemes, and counter-terrorism co-ordination at national, bilateral and regional levels. The participants also exchanged their countries’ vision of the role of anti-terrorism centres in designing training, co-coordinating exercises and leading initiatives in other outstanding issues.

Ross Brown, the Head of the Political-Military Unit of the OSCE Centre in Bishkek, said: “The OSCE’s efforts in countering terrorism reflects its comprehensive approach to security. The OSCE deals with a large spectrum of related problems and has identified close international interaction as a key factor of effective anti-terrorism policy.”

General Rustam Mamasadykov, the Head of the Anti-Terrorism Centre and the Deputy Chairman of Kyrgyzstan’s SCNS said: “These dangerous phenomena - terrorism and extremism - are some of the biggest problems in the modern world. We hope that today’s event will contribute to deploying a broad ideological fighting line against terrorism, with the united efforts, capacity, technology and methodology which are used in the countries that are represented at today’s meeting.”

The event is part of the OSCE Centre’s project to strengthen Kyrgyzstan’s counter-terrorism capacity. Within this project the OSCE Centre in Bishkek is supporting the development of the SCNC’s Anti-Terrorism Centre, which was established in 2011.