ANKARA - Ministry of Interior Affairs Undersecretary Muzaffer Ecemis said on Monday, ''terrorism is the problem of all countries. It is a universal trouble.''
The first meeting of Mission Force for Fight Against Terrorism, which is established under the coordination of Turkey by the Southeastern Europe Cooperation Initiative (SECI) Regional Center for Fight Against Cross-border Crimes, was held in Ankara.
A total of 85 representatives from Turkey, Albania, Bulgaria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Hungary, Macedonia, Moldova, Romania, Greece, Slovenia and Serbia-Montenegro attended the meeting.
Making opening remark of the meeting, Ecemis said, ''terrorism has been continuing to pose a serious threat against peace and stability in the world. Terrorism is the problem of all countries. It is a universal trouble.''
Recalling that concrete steps were taken to develop international cooperation against terrorism following the events of September 11 in the United States, Ecemis stressed, ''however, terrorist attacks in Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Morocco are the signs that the threat of terrorism would continue. We should launch an influential campaign against finance source of terrorism.''
''The SECI constitutes an important ground in fight against illegal activities in the region. I believe that today's meeting would have positive impacts on regional stability and security,'' he added.
Meanwhile, Security Director General Gokhan Aydiner said, ''Turkey has been trying for years to bring the issue of terrorism onto agenda of the world. In some countries, terrorist organizations and their members are considered fighters of freedom. Those who staged gory actions in which thousands of people lost their lives, continue their terrorism activities without any punishment.''
Security Directorate General Fight Against Terrorism and Operation Department Chief Selim Akyildiz said that organized crimes and terrorism, development of common operational plans, financial sources of terrorist organizations and eradication of those things would be discussed within the scope of fight against task force.
Akyildiz said that Turkey fought against many terrorist organizations and stated that it succeeded in decreasing terrorist actions to the lowest level.
''However, terrorist activities were not eradicated completely, since some leaders of those organizations are in foreign countries and some other leaders are backed by their supporters especially in Europe. Terrorist organizations including; KADEK (PKK), DHKP-C, TKP/ML-TIKKO, MLKP, Turk Hezbollah, HD (ICB-AFID) and IBDA-C continue their activities at the marginal level,'' he stated.
Akyildiz said that Turkey suffered from double standard implementations on terror.
Stating that terrorist organization PKK changed its name with KADEK to save itself from image of terrorist organization, Akyildiz said that this organization continued its activities through nearly 400 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) which were not considered illegal by European countries where those NGOs were carrying out their activities.
He added, ''terrorism should be considered a bomb which can explode anytime or anywhere. All of us have a common responsibility to defuse this bomb.''
(UK-EÖ-AÖ) 09.06.2003