Source: http://www.usunnewyork.usmission.gov/press_releases/20080904_231.html http://www.usunnewyork.usmission.gov/press_releases/20080904_231.html
Date: September 4, 2008

Remarks by Ambassador Alejandro Wolff, U.S. Deputy Permanent Representative, on the adoption of the UN General Assembly Strategy Review Resolution, in the General Assembly, September 4, 2008

The United States welcomes the Review of the United Nations General Assembly Counter-Terrorism Strategy. The unanimous adoption of the Strategy during the 61st General Assembly marked the first time that all UN member states agreed to a common strategic approach to fighting terrorism. The Strategy represents a pragmatic, action-oriented approach to fighting terrorism. 
Today, global terrorism remains one of our greatest collective challenges. It affects the lives of all people and all nations, in both direct and indirect ways. No geographic region is immune. The recent terrorist attacks specifically targeting UN offices in Algiers and UN officials underscore the need for all Member States to work together to support the General Assembly’s Counter-Terrorism efforts. 
 
The success of the Review is a testament to the resiliency of our collective will to battle terrorism. And it is one the United States welcomes. The United States remains strongly committed to supporting the efforts both of the General Assembly, and the Security Council, toward this end.
 
We appreciate the hard work that has gone into producing a thoughtful and balanced document. We believe this Review will enhance the overall UN counter-terrorism program. We especially appreciate the efforts of the Facilitator, the Permanent Representative of Guatemala, Ambassador Gert Rosenthal. He has done a superb job working with Member States to reach unanimous support for the Review resolution. 
 
The United States strongly supports the central role of the United Nations in the global fight against terrorism and wants to strengthen the UN’s ability and resolve to play a constructive and effective role.
The United States views the creation of the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy and the Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force as key milestones in the international effort to eliminate terrorism. We must ensure the full and effective implementation of the Strategy. 
We must also continue to cooperate with the Security Council's counterterrorism committees, to ensure that our obligations under the Charter are fully implemented, and that those Member States having the will, but not the capacity to fulfill these obligations, receive the help they need to do so.
We appreciate the efforts of the Secretariat to set up the Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force (CTITF) which has moved to mobilize the UN and its constituent agencies to identify concrete deliverables under each of the four topical pillars of the Strategy. We call on those Member States in a position to do so to respond to the Task Force’s call for contributions. 
Toward this end, the United States has provided a voluntary contribution of nearly one-half million dollars to support the Task Force’s working groups. Additionally, we have provided extensive government-wide responses to the working groups on Radicalization and Extremism and Countering the Use of the Internet for Terrorist Purposes. 
We call on the Task Force to continue to engage Member States on its work by providing information and updates on the working groups’ activities. 
United States engagement in support of the Strategy is structured to implement all four pillars of the Strategy. We recognize the need to build Member States’ capacity to meet international counterterrorism standards. The United States has funded numerous cooperative and capacity-building initiatives to help partner nations better address terrorism, with the long-term goal of reducing conditions conducive to terrorism. 
In 2007 alone, we conducted 266 training activities and technical consultations, including over 4,500 participants from 64 countries, emphasizing law enforcement under the rule of law and respect for human rights.
We have offered extensive counter-terrorism finance capacity-building efforts, on a regional and bilateral basis, in 45 countries through the Counter-Terrorist Finance Training program. 
We’ve provided border security training and capacity building in 20 countries through the Terrorist Interdiction Program.
In addition, the United States is focused on increasing economic development by helping member states tackle poverty, unemployment, weak institutions, and corruption. This can help reduce the recruiting grounds for terrorists. 
As a compliment to our own bilateral efforts, we support the holistic approach to countering terrorism embraced in the Strategy and reaffirmed in the Review. If we as Member States are to be successful in our common struggle against terrorism, we must work together with our growing networks of partners, in a strategic and coordinated manner. 
While we think the Security Council should continue to play a key part in the UN's effort, many others in the UN system can and should make contributions to the broader counter-terrorism effort, whether it concerns capacity-building, education, economic development, or helping address the underlying conditions that terrorists and extremists exploit.
The effectiveness of UN efforts to manage and reduce the terrorist threat depends to a large degree on improving the coordination among the different parts of the UN counter-terrorism program and ensuring that all relevant UN bodies and organs are focused on making practical contributions to the global effort. To this end, we believe the UN Strategy should remain focused on identifying concrete ways in which the different parts of the UN system can contribute to the global counterterrorism campaign and ensure the necessary degree of cooperation and coordination to maximize synergies and avoid duplication of work. 
The Strategy brought together the efforts of the principal organs of the UN. Each has an important role to play in co-ordination with the other but a balance must be maintained to ensure that the expertise of these bodies is used to maximum efficiency in UN counter-terrorism activities. We believe a key objective of the strategy is system-wide coherence and the Task Force should continue to stress cooperation among all the UN offices which can support counter-terrorism efforts within their mandates.
This approach recognizes that diverse UN programs can provide useful impetus to efforts to address terrorism. We believe all programs can and should play a vital and meaningful role in the fight against terrorism.
The United States once again thanks the Secretary-General and his team for their hard work in facilitating the completion of the Review process. We look forward to hearing the views of others and, we hope, reports of great progress in our collective effort.