Foreign Ministry hosts GCC- EU workshop

Manama, Apr.21 (BNA): The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in collaboration with the Central Bank of Bahrain and in coordination with the General Secretariat of the Gulf Cooperation Council and the European Union will be organizing on Wednesday, April 22, 2015, the 8th GCC -EU Workshop to combat the financing of terrorism with the participation of a number of domestic and foreign entities. The workshop program includes a welcome speech by the host country by His Excellency Ambassador Dr. Nasser Mohammad Yousuf Al Balouchi, and the GCC speech presented by the State of the presidency, Qatar. The Workshop will include four sessions entitled "activation mechanism of Security Council resolution 1373 (2001), taking into account recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) regarding the financing of terrorism, where the Kingdom of Bahrain, the State of Kuwait and the State of Qatar will present working papers of mechanism for applying the decisions of the Security Council relating to terrorism. The second session will focus on risk assessment at the national level in the field of combating the financing of terrorism, where the Kingdom of Bahrain will present a working paper in this regard. The third session will discuss reducing the exploitation of charities in the financing of terrorism where Bahrain's experience in this area will be reviewed. The fourth and final session will be focused on information-sharing mechanisms and exchanging technical assistance between the GCC countries and the European Union in order to promote the work of the national committees to combat money laundering and terrorist financing. The UAE will present two working papers, the first on the status of the controls necessary to ensure that the media promote shared values and fighting extremism while the second worksheet paper will discuss encouraging cooperation between anti-terrorism agencies in order to diminish the sources of funding the terrorist organization "Daash" and the best practices in this area. It is expected that many experts and specialists from the GCC countries and the European Union will be participating in this workshop..