On December 7, the Valdai Discussion Club hosted an expert discussion, titled “The Role of Russia in International Counter-Terrorism Cooperation” with the participation of Ilya Rogachev, Director of the Department for New Challenges and Threats of the Russian Foreign Ministry.
The participants discussed the Global Terrorism Index-2018, developed annually by an international group of experts under the auspices of the Institute for Economics and Peace (Sydney University, Australia), which measures levels of terrorist activities in the world.
International terrorism is one of the most serious threats to global security in the 21st century. In conditions of constructive political dialogue freezing between Russia and the West, there is a real danger that the general distrust affects negatively the coordination of the leading countries efforts to fight against terrorism. Moreover, the double standards strengthening in relation to terrorism, the latent readiness of some countries to use extremist groups to achieve their political goals makes the fight against terrorism a reason for mutual accusations. At the same time, the problem of counterterrorism remains one of the few topics, where Russia and the West have common goals and there is an opportunity to develop a dialogue. Russia has made a significant contribution to the fight against terrorism in the Middle East, it has experience to stop terrorist activity.
What are the prospects for concerted actions by Russia and the West in the fight against terrorism? How to neutralize the factors hindering the common struggle? The participants of the expert discussion answered these and other questions.
Speakers:
Ilya Rogachev, Director of the Department for New Challenges and Threats of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation;
Evgenia Gvozdeva, Director of Production at the European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center.
Moderator:
Working languages: Russian, English.