“We have absolute political commitment. Our prime minister leads from the front on counterterrorism,” Md Shahidul Haque said on Sunday.
Haque was opening a two-day capacity building workshop on ‘Terrorist designation and asset freezing regime under UN Security Council Resolutions’ in Dhaka with National Board of Revenue (NBR) Chairman Md Nojibur Rahman.
“Bangladesh has always been pro-active in that area including introducing new legislations to comprehensively deal the issue,” the foreign secretary said.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the United Nations Counter Terrorism Implementation Task Force, CTITF, jointly organised the workshop to make government officials aware of the UN Resolutions that mandates terrorist designation and asset freezing.
Nojibur Rahman said Bangladesh was one of the first countries to act on the UN resolutions and confiscate goods defined illegal by the resolutions.
“We are very active in keeping with our political commitment,” he said, adding that NBR would work on five principals – coordination, cooperation, coherence, commitment and courage.
It focuses on capacity building of the customs officials in addressing the threats and flow of terrorist-financing pursuant to relevant UNSCRs.
The UN Security Council has the mandate to designate individuals and entities as terrorists and impose obligation to the member states to freeze assets and funds and restrict travel of those designated as terrorists for preventing flow of terror financing.
The foreign ministry said in a statement that the workshop was specially designed for immigration and customs officials, who are responsible for dealing with this task at the immigration and border entry points.
It will provide “a thorough orientation on the process and guidelines for effective implementation of these UN restrictions or sanctions”.
Bangladesh has taken bold strides in strengthening its legal and regulatory regimes on combating terrorism and financing of terrorism.
In addition to its efforts domestically, Bangladesh is working closely with other countries, regional organisations and the UN to fight this menace.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also formed a National Committee on implementation of UN Security Council Resolution relating to terrorism and financing of terrorism.
One of the responsibilities of the committee is to organise workshops and training sessions for different actors to build capacity and raise awareness for fulfilling their obligations under the concerned terrorist financial sanctions by the UN Security Council.
The foreign secretary, who is also the chair of the National Committee, stressed on coordination among the different government agencies to combat the terrorist financing.
The foreign ministry organised a similar workshop in August 2015.