Global Security Newswire

Cooperation among three U.N. counterterrorism bodies has improved in the past year, the groups' leaders told the Security Council on Wednesday (see GSN, Aug. 19).

The council has created three committees in the past nine years to combat terrorism and last year asked panel leaders to increase their cooperation. The three panels are the al-Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Committee, created in 1999, the Counterterrorism Committee, formed in 2001, and the committee on WMD nonproliferation, established in 2004 as a result of council Resolution 1540.

Ambassador Jorge Urbina of Costa Rica, head of the WMD committee, told the council that the groups had conducted joint expert meetings to implement common strategies and convened intercommittee workshops to improve their cooperation.

Regarding Resolution 1540, Urbina said 159 nations had submitted initial declarations describing their nonproliferation efforts and 102 countries had followed up with additional information. In addition, committee members and experts contributed to 14 conferences, seminars and workshops in the past year (United Nations release, Nov. 12).