Welcoming Remarks – “Leaving Terrorism Behind”

Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,

It is great immense pleasure for me, on behalf of the Norwegian Government, to welcome you to this one day conference in New York.

The symbolic connection between New York and the horrors of terrorism is obvious due to the tragic attack on World Trade Center September 11 2001. Our thoughts will always be with the victims of this terrible act.

Since then, we all have strengthened/intensified our efforts to prevent terrorism, both domestically and internationally. The foremost framework for this work has been the UN, but we have also worked through other international and regional organisations as well as in direct cooperation with other governments. The unanimous adoption by the UN General Assembly in 2006 of the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy was a crucial step for the joint effort to curb terrorism.

A fundamental principle of Norwegian foreign policy is to strengthen the role of the UN. I thus find it most suitable that we are meeting today in New York and that so many of you work in the UN. Norway will naturally contribute to the fight against terrorism in line with the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy. We will also give active support to the general implementation of the strategy. We will continue to fulfil our responsibilities in close cooperation with other actors – whether multilateral or bilateral. Our goal is to make an effective and relevant contribution to the fight against terrorism within the framework of international law and respect for human rights.

There are, ladies and gentlemen, no simple solutions in the fight against terrorism. We all must apply a broad approach, including political, legal, economic, humanitarian and diplomatic measures. Particular attention should be paid to measures aimed at countering radicalisation and thereby the long-term prevention of terrorism.

Thus, through intensified cooperation between practitioners, politicians and academics we are constantly developing our strategies to prevent terrorism. Much has been achieved since 2001, but there are still new avenues to explore in order for us to be more effective.

This is exactly why we are here today.

We are here to share experiences and lessons learned on disengagement from terrorism. We need to broaden our understanding on how to counter terrorism. Disengagement could be an area which one day will be regarded as a natural component of a comprehensive counter-terrorism approach.

There has been a dynamic development related to counter-terrorism. I remember very well that in the immediate aftermath of the attacks on September 11 2001 the importance of preventing “radicalisation” was not given. In fact, it took several years before radicalisation was seen as a natural component in counter-terrorism strategies.

Deradicalisation and disengagement programmes could be a crucial factor in the prevention of further radicalisation. Not because the presence of a radicalized population is a root-cause to terrorism, but because this tends to reinforce the conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism.

If successful with such programmes, we might contribute to a weakening of the negative cycle of radicalisation. A cycle that seems to be fuelled both by the continued presence of conditions conducive to radicalisation and the presence of a “radicalised entrepreneurship” that stimulates these conditions.

It takes time to gather knowledge and experience in order for a new approach to be developed and adopted. From our perspective Deradicalisation and disengagement should have a natural place in comprehensive counter-terrorism strategies. We see this conference as an important starting point, making sure we all sing from the same songsheet when these issues are further discussed here in New York and elsewhere.

Deradicalisation and disengagement programmes have rarely been discussed internationally in relation to counter-terrorism efforts. However, they do exist, in many variations, and with different degrees of success.

In Norway, we have run a programme on Deradicalisation of individuals connected to extreme-right ideology. We know through our “Leaving Terrorism Behind” project that other countries have similar experiences. It is important that we are familiarised with these different experiences and that we consider how to make use of them in our national or international counter-terrorism strategies.

The Norwegian government feels that research on this topic needs further developing. This clearly hampers our ability to develop policy recommendations on how to establish and run Deradicalisation programmes targeted towards individuals and groups willing to commit acts of terrorism.

Our aim with the support of the research on Deradicalisation, which culminates here today, is precisely to contribute to this understanding of how individual and collective disengagement programmes can be utilized in our daily work to prevent terrorism.

We are therefore pleased with the excellent cooperation with IPI and CTITF.  I know that CTITF has taken a serious interest in Deradicalisation through their working group on radicalisation in strong cooperation with UNICRI.

I hope that through our discussions today we will be able to develop new ideas and recommendations for the UN as well as for member states on how to make best use of Deradicalisation or disengagement programms in counter-terrorism efforts. If so, ladies and gentlemen, I hope that we together can find ways to put these ideas and recommendations on the agenda.

I look forward to interesting presentations and fruitful discussions. Thank you.