High-level meeting on migration and terrorism opens in Prague

PRAGUE, 3 June 2002 - A high-level international meeting on combating terrorism through sharing information on migration opened in Prague today. The three-day meeting will explore how states can improve co-operation mechanisms in order to control their borders more effectively and prevent border crossing by terrorist and organized crime groups, without impeding trade flows and the free movement of people.

"Clearly there are some people we do not want to let into our countries for the reasons of safety and security of our citizens, but we also do not want to erect new iron curtains again", said Steven Wagenseil, Deputy Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), which organizes the meeting together with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the Czech Government. "In order to meet the twin goals of controlling borders while simutaneously ensuring freedom of movement, we need to talk to each other, keep information channels open and develop common approaches to the collection and sharing of information."

At the meeting, more than 50 high-ranking officials and international experts will look at existing international co-operation mechanisms in the European Union, North America and Central Europe. The meeting will focus on how these experiences can be applied in the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States, some of which face increasing strains of their border regimes due to their geographical location on one of the main migration routes to Europe and their proximity to the current conflict in Afghanistan.