Fighting all Terrorism Funding Tools Very Necessary to Completely Eliminate Terrorism

NEW YORK, (ST)- Syria is the first partner in and the biggest contributor to the war on global terrorism, yet it hasn’t received any UN support in this domain, rather it has faced an unprecedented economic siege imposed on it by the governments of the countries that have either contributed to financing this terrorism or have ignored terrorism financiers, according to Member of Syria’s Permanent Mission at the United Nations Ammar Ersan.

During a Security Council session on combating terrorism funding on Thursday, Ersan said “Syria welcomes the Security Council’s adoption of Resolution No. 2461 for 2019 and it calls for real and collective international commitment to implementing  this resolution.”  

” Syria also stresses that the UN effectiveness and credibility regarding the implementation of such resolutions depend on implementing previous Security Council resolutions relating to the fight against terrorism and the prohibition of terrorism funding and on not allowing some countries to exploit these resolutions in putting political and economic pressure on member states,” he added.

 Ersan pointed out that the mandate of the resolution adopted today at the Security Council is confined to confronting and prohibiting the financing of individuals, groups, entities and establishments classified by the Security Council as terrorist  parties. He noted that based on this legal understanding, Syria categorically rejects the misleading and politicized assessment made by Head of the International Financial Action Task Force Marshall Billingslea.

Ersan went on to say that Syria had implemented the work plan put by the Financial Action Task Force with regard to treating any failure in the money-laundering  combat systems and  Terrorism funding.

“Syria welcomes and expects from the experts team of the Financial Action Task Force to visit Damascus and inspect the Syrian government’s full implementation of the necessary reforms,” Ersan affirmed.

He asserted that Syria believes that fighting all terrorism funding tools is undoubtedly a decisive and inevitable factor in completely eliminating terrorism.

“During its war on the terrorism of Daesh, Jabhat al-Nusra and their affiliated terror groups, Syria has lost the lives of tens of thousands of its citizens and the Syrian people have experienced an unprecedented suffering because of terrorism , not to mention the horrible economic losses that no country in the world can tolerate alone,” Ersan said.

“Thus, we can say that Syria is the first partner and the biggest contributor within the framework of the war on global terrorism, yet, it has been exposed to an unprecedented economic siege imposed by western countries that have contributed to funding terrorism or at least have given a blind eyes to terrorism financiers,” he added.

Hamda Mustafa