"Asia-Europe Counter-Terrorism Dialogue in Singapore” with strong political commitment - Regional Programme Political Dialogue Asia
Event Reports
The special highlight of this conference was the keynote session “New Threat Landscape in Asia and Europe”. The two distinguished speakers were the Parliamentary State Secretary of the Federal Ministry of the Interior of Germany Dr. Günter Krings MdB and the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Home Affairs of Malaysia YAB Dato' Seri Dr. Ahmad Zahid Hamidi. The opening remarks of the event were delivered by Ambassador Ong Keng Yong, Executive Deputy Chairman, RSIS, and former Secretary General of ASEAN and Dr. Beatrice Gorawantschy, Director of the KAS’ Regional Programme Political Dialogue Asia and the Pacific. The discussion was moderated by Prof. Rohan Gunaratna, Head of ICPVTR.
This new initiative of KAS and ICPVTR will take place every year, alternating between an Asian and European country. The Dialogue offers a unique opportunity for policy makers, representatives of ministries as well as law enforcement units and experts from the academia to have an exchange on current developments and collaborative activities.
The recent attacks in Paris, Jakarta, Brussels, Dhaka and Nice are indicators of the rising terror threats in Europe and Asia. While calls for tighter security measures have become stronger, it is necessary to enhance international cooperation and contain Daesh extremism through comprehensive actions by all stakeholders including the Muslim communities themselves.
This conference analysed recent developments concerning extremism and the implications of terrorism on societies in Asia and Europe. Special attention was given to Daesh-linked activities in the respective countries, the different recruitment channels, possible future developments and responses.
The keynote session of the Asia-Europe Counter-Terrorism Dialogue generated a very strong interest among the more than 110 participants from 25 countries and emphasized the high demand in communication channels between Europa and Asia – a discussion which was also continued in the closed-door dialogue following the keynotes. The closed-door dialogue under Chatham House Rules was attended by diplomatic corps and the chief counter-terrorism experts of Germany, Singapore, Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brunei, Europol, France, Indonesia, Malaysia, Maldives, OSCE, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and the United Kingdom.
In 2015, the KAS in Singapore had already organized a European-Asian exchange on counter-terrorism which resulted in a much-noticed KAS-publication ‘From the Desert to World Cities – The New Terrorism’. On the occasion of this year’s conference, ICPVTR and KAS produced a new joint book publication ‘Countering Daesh Extremism – European and Asian Responses’ which was publically launched at the event on 1 November.
