The firm stance of the State of Qatar against terrorism and combating it in all its forms has become a national priority to the State which continues its unflinching commitment to comply with the international obligations since its accession to the 1999 International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism and other international conventions relating to the fight against terrorism.
For years Qatar continues its rigorous efforts to eliminate the threat of terrorism taking strong steps to eradicate the financing of terrorism by developing appropriate legislation and upgrading the financial control system and through its active participation in international and regional arrangements to combat relevant activities.
Qatar believes that the implementation of the rule of law is important as one of the most important causes of terrorism is the denial of justice, said Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister H E Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani while addressing London Westminster Conference on Counterterrorism in July last year. “We must not allow governments to disrespect the rule of law or use terrorism as a pretext to prosecute their political opponents,” he stressed.
The approach of using security and intelligence in the fight against terrorism is necessary, but not sufficient as economic and social dimensions should be also added to fight this menance, H E the Deputy Prime Minister had stressed.
At the meeting of the Security Council on the threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts and combating the financing of terrorism recently, H E Sheikha Alya Ahmed bin Saif Al-Thani, the Permanent Representative of Qatar to the United Nations said Qatar was actively participating in the international and regional arrangements to combat the financing of terrorism. These include the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which the country is working on implementing its resolutions. She added that the State of Qatar was one of the founding members of the FATF in the Middle-East and North Africa (FATFMENA), and is also a member of the Terrorist Financing Targeting Centre (TFTC). The country also cooperates with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the designated bodies in the United Nations.
The country has concluded a number of regional and bilateral agreements to combat the financing of terrorism, including a memorandum of understanding with the United States in 2017, which is the first of its kind in the region she said. The MoU laid out the mutual commitments for increasing information sharing, disrupting terrorism financing flows, and intensifying counterterrorism activities. H E Sheikha Alya reaffirmed that State of Qatar has played an active role on the ground in the framework of the joint efforts made by the International Coalition to combat ISIS, which resulted in the expulsion of the terrorist organization from its last strongholds in Syria. The State of Qatar is not only working with its international allies to combat terrorism and its financing, but is also playing its role to eradicate root causes of terrorism through provision of educational opportunities to seven million children who are deprived from schools and to empower half a million minors and young people in the Middle East and North Africa.
