PAM attended and contributed to the 18th Meeting of the Heads of Special Services, Security Agencies and Law Enforcement Organizations, which was kindly hosted by the Federal Security Services of Russia (FSB), in Sochi, Russian Federation, on 16-17 October 2019.
The meeting brought together more than 370 top experts from 80 national security services, together with a selected number of international organizations, to review the present level of threat posed by terrorist groups around the world, and to exchange best practices and key information in counter-terrorism strategies.
In his address, on behalf of the PAM Special Committee on Terrorism, PAM Secretary General, Ambassador Sergio Piazzi, highlighted the key mandate of national and international parliaments in their legislative role in global counterterrorism efforts. He further called for a greater exchange of information between MPs and national security agencies to create the necessary synergies needed between the legislative and executive bodies to reinforce counter-terrorism measures and international cooperation on these matters.
Amb. Jean Paul Laborde, in his intervention, highlighted the current challenges posed by the use of technology by terrorists, and outlined the necessary international cooperation needed to effectively reinforce security in the information space.
On the margins of the conference, PAM officials held several bilateral discussions with national delegations from the USA, France, Italy, Russian Federation, Slovenia, Syria, Iran, Egypt, Sudan, and Israel among others, as well as with the UN Office on Counter-terrorism, the UN Security Council CTED, and with the UN ISIL (Da’esh)/Al-Qaida/ Taliban Monitoring Team. These consultations allowed PAM to finetune further its activities on counter-terrorism, and discussions will continue at the upcoming Coordination Meeting of the PAM Special Committee on Counter-terrorism in Rome, on 29 November.
The Rome meeting aims for PAM to consolidate those priority areas related to counter-terrorism, gather concrete recommendations for the draft resolution to be presented at the next plenary session in Athens, and to draw a preliminary work plan for the biennium of 2020-2021 for, inter alia, joint activities with its key partners in this field. Shortly after the meeting, PAM will also sign a bilateral agreement with the United Nations to consolidate and structure further their joint work on counter-terrorism.