THE JOINT BSEC-USA WORKSHOP ON PREVENTING TERRORIST TRAVEL-SHARING BEST PRACTICES

The Permanent International Secretariat of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) and the Department of State of the United States of America organized a Joint Workshop on Preventing Terrorist Travel-Sharing Best Practices at the BSEC Headquarters in Istanbul, on 27-28 April 2010.

Representatives from the BSEC Member States, Related Bodies, Observers, Sectoral Dialogue Partners, Iraq, Spain, IOM, OSCE, INTERPOL, FRONTEX, EUROPOL and the SECI Center participated in the event.

The keynote address was delivered by Mr. Gilles de KERCHOVE, EU Counterterrorism Coordinator.

During the two-day long Workshop, the participants noted that international borders create both opportunities and vulnerabilities for terrorists and governments need to work together to minimize the former and exploit the latter. To meet this challenge, they acknowledged that international actors must take a flexible and dynamic approach to respond to changes in the operating environment.

To achieve this, participants discussed a number of ideas and issues, including:

• Enhancing intelligence exchange, information collection and sharing, in ways consistent with legal norms and privacy protection in different jurisdictions;

• Strengthening travel document security and identity management;

• Broadening existing cooperation mechanisms among regional partners for information exchange and early detection of threats to aviation security;

• Strengthening domestic counterterrorism legislation in compliance with international standards;

• Addressing security risks associated with irregular migration routes and integration strategies for immigrants;

• Building ties between relevant officials in different countries and organizations to facilitate communication, cooperation and crisis management;

• Supporting capacity building programs including training of frontline law enforcement, security services and border security officials;

• Expanding awareness, use and comprehensiveness of international databases on travellers, travel documents and related information;

• Sharing and developing best practices to deal with the dangers of radicalization.

The USA, in its capacity as Observer in BSEC, had proposed and co-organized the said event, addressing an important issue for the region.

As is known, BSEC has a Working Group on Cooperation in Combating Crime in Particular in its Organized Forms, established in 1998, which meets regularly every six months to foster regional cooperation in fighting organized crime, including terrorism. Furthermore, the Ministers of Interior of the BSEC Member States signed the Additional Protocol on Combating Terrorism in 2004.

For further information: Black Sea Economic Cooperation