Abdullah: the world must act together

ABU DHABI // Global cooperation is needed to tackle the root causes of piracy, terrorism and extremism, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, told a high-powered summit in the capital yesterday.

"International cooperation, to us in the UAE, is very important," Sheikh Abdullah said. The challenges the world faced today required "the development of new models or to adapt traditional models" to solve them.

Piracy threatened international businesses as well as security and prosperity in many countries, "especially in our region". It should be treated not just as a security problem, but one with political and economic solutions, the minister said.

The most recent Somalian pirate attack on a UAE-owned vessel was on January 1, when a ship owned by Folk Shipping in Dubai was hijacked north of the Seychelles. In March last year, eight UAE-owned ships were hijacked.

Part of the solution, Sheikh Abdullah said, was to encourage economic and social development in countries such as Somalia. Food and water security must be addressed too, he said, with long-term plans.

Sheikh Abdullah was speaking at the opening of the annual two-day Summit on the Global Agenda. His audience included Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, the former British prime minister Gordon Brown and more than 750 Global Agenda council members from 80 countries.

The Network of Global Agenda Councils was set up by the World Economic Forum in 2008, assembling world leaders in academia, government, business and other fields to share their knowledge of key issues facing the world.

On terrorism, Sheikh Abdullah said the UAE had already taken measures including implementing anti-money laundering regulations, monitoring exports and increasing cooperation between military and security forces, he said.

It also recently announced that a counter-terrorism unit will be built in Abu Dhabi next year, to fight violent extremism in particular.

“Extremism here is not Islamist or Christian, but general extremism,” he said. “Fighting extremism requires that we take international action, and from civil society.

“Extremist ideology, which leads to terrorism around the world, needs to be faced firmly, but also from a cultural, ideological and intellectual viewpoint.”

The new unit will train government officials, non-governmental organisations and community leaders to try to impede recruitment by terrorist organisations and to undermine radical ideologies.

Sheikh Abdullah said he was “proud” that the UAE was the only country in the region with a human-trafficking law and that it was active in fighting the problem.

Dr Anwar Gargash, the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, has said that, unlike traffic accidents, it was better for more human trafficking cases to come to light rather than fewer, since this indicated greater awareness and more reporting of the crime. And such cases have been steadily rising, from 10 in 2007 to 58 last year.

Sheikh Abdullah concluded by emphasising the UAE nuclear energy programme’s focus on ensuring complete security, safety and transparency. “It has been described as the gold standard by other countries,” he said. “We are proud of that.

“I am giving these examples to show the nature of discussion this week is as important to the UAE as to the rest of the world,” he said.

“This summit is of utmost importance.”

Maj Gen Khalid Al Bu Ainnain, the former commander of the Air Force and Air Defence officer, said the problems highlighted by Sheikh Abdullah were prevalent not only in the UAE, but elsewhere in the region.

“We always think of how to fight, but not look for reasons why these things happen,” he said.

“Somalia is a nation destroyed – it has no economy, and no government.” Promoting economic stability there would help to stop piracy and terrorism – “this is the way the UAE has used for the past 10 years now”.