Charles Tannock Hosts Hearing: How do Democracies in Europe, the Middle-East and South Asia React to Terror.
BRUSSELS, June 16, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- "It will be fundamental to world security if the Pakistani army truly starts fighting terrorism with an intent to comprehensively defeat it instead of ambivalently", Conservative British MEP Charles Tannock said in agreement with the former director of the Indian intelligence service (RAW) Vikram Sood at a hearing in the European Parliament.
The former director of Mossad Efraim Halevy, said "it is not too late for Prime Minister Erdogan to reverse his support for IHH. This Islamic organisation has established links to jihadi extremists as well as better known mainstream charitable activities, and it must be hoped for that the Turkish government will desist in support for any further provocative attempt to break the blockade on Hamas ruled Gaza", Halevy said in response to a question from the audience.
The final panellist Gilles de Kerchove, who is the EU counter Terrorism Coordinator, said that the EU needs to be at the forefront in helping fight terrorists threats at home and abroad and cooperate with democratic partners like the Unites States, India or Israel and with emerging democracies like Pakistan in this global threat. We will need to maintain the international consensus against terrorism set out in the UN Global Strategy against Terrorism. It is also important to achieve the right balance between security and the inevitable restrictions this imposes on our citizens and the need to maintain our traditions of freedom and openness in the EU.
MEP Charles Tannock closed the event by saying "the fight against global terrorism particularly of the jihadi kind is of the highest priority to the EU. There is much scope for the intelligence and security communities to further their cooperation with democratic countries that share our common values like India and Israel but also scope for member states, understandably traditionally accustomed to working bilaterally, to share more key data with fellow EU partner governments and law enforcement agencies in order to defeat this scourge".
SOURCE MEP Charles Tannock
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