Dmitriy Kobitskiy Spoke at Second Coordination Meeting of Parliamentary Assemblies

On 10 June, IPA CIS Council Secretary General Dmitriy Kobitskiy took part via videoconferencing in the Second Coordinating Meeting of the Parliamentary Assemblies held in Naples by the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism with the support of the Shura Council of the State of Qatar.

The Secretary General emphasized that international terrorism remained one of the main problems in the field of security and stressed the need to maintain and comprehensively strengthen international cooperation mechanisms, increase their efficiency and effectiveness, and improve legislative support on a global scale.

He noted the increased online activities of terrorist groups, including the use of media centers for spreading the ideology of extremism and involving new members in terrorist activities. There is an increase in the use of new sources and channels of terrorist financing in cyberspace. Cryptocurrencies are increasingly being used to guarantee the anonymity for illegal financial transactions.

Dmitriy Kobitskiy also noted that there was a sharp increase in cross-border arms trade, which became a new source of income for terrorist groups and provided access to a significant amount of both light weapons and high-tech military equipment. He drew special attention to the fact that terrorist groups increasingly try to gain access to high technologies, chemical and biological weapons, their production and use, as well as to use armed unmanned aerial vehicles during terrorist attacks.

Dmitriy Kobitskiy informed the meeting participants about the activities of the IPA CIS Permanent Commission on Defense and Security Issues and the Joint Commission at the IPA CIS for the Harmonization of National Laws Related to Security, Countering Emerging Threats and Challenges. At the proposals of the Commissions, issues related to countering international terrorism were submitted for consideration by the Assembly more than 20 times. 114 model laws and other documents have been adopted in the field of combating crime, illicit trafficking in narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances and their precursors, combating drug addiction, corruption, money laundering, human trafficking, terrorism and extremism.

Dmitriy Kobitskiy recalled that the issues of countering the terrorist threat were widely discussed during the international parliamentary conference “Global Challenges and Threats in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Terrorism and Violent Extremism”, held at the IPA CIS headquarters last April. The Secretary General invited the meeting participants to take part in the next conference on countering terrorism scheduled for April 2023.

The Second Coordinating Meeting of the Parliamentary Assemblies on countering terrorism reviewed the results of the UNOCT cooperation with the Parliamentary Assemblies in 2021-2022 and the priority thematic areas and geographical coverage of possible joint initiatives of the UNOCT and the parliamentary assemblies on countering terrorism and preventing violent extremism (CT/PVE) for the next 12-month period.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe was elected as the chair of the coordination meeting of the parliamentary assemblies.