Arab quartet drafts agreement to combat terrorism

CAIRO - 22 June 2017: The International Cooperation Office affiliated with Egypt’s Ministry of Justice has drawn up the main features of an anti-terrorism quartet agreement, high-level judicial sources revealed on Wednesday.

The sources noted that the quartet agreement will include Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain and shall be launched within a few days. Its key role is to dry up the financial sources of terrorism in the countries party to the agreement and to exchange fugitives; 12 entities have been classified as terror groups and 59 persons named terrorist on a joint terrorism watch list.

According to the official draft of the agreement, which Youm7 newspaper obtained, “any group, entity or organization consisting of three persons or more holding an Egyptian or foreign citizenship and is believed to execute terror acts will be immediately deemed a terrorist entity.’

The agreement defines funding terrorism as “obtaining, providing and supplying money, ammunition, arms, equipment, data or logistics directly or indirectly in order to carry out terrorist acts.”

The four signatories will determine penalties against countries which support terrorist groups such as applying political and economic embargos. Moreover, relatives of victims of terrorism will receive financial compensation from the funds that are confiscated from groups proven to finance terrorism by a committee designated to be in charge of the funds.

International law and U.N. procedures to combat terrorism are the key references for the agreement drafted by the International Cooperation Office in Cairo, the sources stressed.

Among these are the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings adopted by the U.N. in 1997, and the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism in 1999.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and his Saudi counterpart Adel al Jabir met on June 5 and underlined the importance of intensifying cooperation to combat terrorism through judicial agreements, security coordination, military cooperation and drying up funding to terrorism.