Terrorism is still not an obvious threat to some countries, says Mike Smith, executive director of the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee, who took part in a recent two-day security conference in Russia’s Yekaterinburg.
“Our work is first of all raising the awareness of countries of the importance of this issue, of the critical importance of them taking steps to strengthen their own defenses against terrorism,” he told RT. “This is very difficult for some countries, they don’t see it as a priority. But we point out that if they are vulnerable they might be used by terrorists to move money about or to set up training centers or whatever.”
Mike Smith also outlined Russia’s role in leading the fight against terrorism in Eastern Europe:
“Russia has an enormous amount of experience in fighting terrorism. It has great resources as well. Russia has also been a leader in this region. I would say Russia is already making a significant contribution. I’d like to see Russia continuing leadership in Eastern Europe on a lot of these issues. And in fact it is doing this through the CIS.”