–Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
-National and International Guests,
-Dear Participants!
Today, I am greatly honored and delighted to participate in this important occasion of the closing of National Seminar on Counter-Terrorism. To prevent any form of terrorist act aiming at sustaining peace and political stability and social security for our people and to sustain a favorable business environment for the development of the economy toward reducing the poverty of the people, I believe that Counter-Terrorism is an important issue that we must all joint together to prevent by having a close cooperation with the international communities in the region and the world. This represents the main reason for conducting this seminar which is due to come to a halt today.
Taking this great opportunity, on behalf of the Royal Government and myself, I would like to congratulate and to highly value the efforts made by all managements, government officials and all the staffs of the working group in organizing of this seminar who have devoted their time and efforts and which have closely cooperated with national and international partners in hosting this important seminar to achieve such a proud and positive outcome.
This outcome is clearly revealed in the summary report of the seminar that was successfully conducted over these two days with support from Great Britain and Australia. It is also worthwhile to note that the participation of civil servants, police officers and all militants in this seminar reflects the efforts and high responsibility of all concerned parties in preventing terrorism and to have national and international cooperation to seek peace, prosperity and security for the people living in the country, region as well as the world.
Taking this opportunity, I would like to extend my sincere appreciation to Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen for your participation and openly sharing your ideas and views in this seminar and in providing constructive recommendations aiming at addressing policy and structural challenges in order to identify strengths and weaknesses and to lay out new measures and strategies to increase efficiency in preventing acts of terrorisms to ensure security, peace, and stability for our people.
At the same time, on behalf of the Royal Government of Cambodia, the National Committee on Counter-Terrorism and myself, I would like to compliment the organizers in raising awareness of the current situation regarding the terrorism. In this sense, the unity and cooperation between all concerned partners have been strengthened and expanded which provided an important contribution to support and enhance the establishment of a planning document and to protect objectives identified by the National Committee on Counter-Terrorism. I believe that the participants have listened to the case of the London Bombing and regarding the role and responsibility of different agencies, intelligence unit, police department, military, and emergency unit. At the same time, I would like to thank for the cooperation and support extended by the Great Britain and Australia to Cambodia to make this important seminar possible. I strongly believe that the outcome of this national seminar will lead to new changes on the quality of work and close cooperation among relevant agencies, including the National Committee on Country-Terrorism and its secretariat as a leading unit to facilitate this cooperation.
We remember that recently threats of terrorism and explosions have occurred at various locations which are not far from our region. For instance, only within the Asian Pacific region the terrorism threat still continues in some areas. In this sense, countries have put forward their measures in order to prevent terrorism activities. In fact, presence of some terrorism movement and their followers in Cambodia, threats on Canadian Embassy in Bangkok via email originated from Cambodia, threat fax message to British Embassy in Phnom Penh, all these are concern. This factor clearly shows that eve though Cambodia is not a primary target of terrorism, but it does not mean that here we are free from terrorism related activities.
Looking from the other side, we have made much success, including disintegrating the Khmer Rouge that conducted a campaign of genocide; we brought back full peace to the people. We have made success in maintaining security and order domestically and to some extent internationally. Are these successes sufficient for us? The answer is not, we need to put more efforts and preventative measures to address the issue.
Base on the above, the law on counter-terrorism has been drafted and submitted for inter-ministerial discussion at the Council of Ministers. I would like to appeal to armed forces, authorities at all levels and relevant national and international agencies to effectively implement the following recommendations:
1. Continue to maintain social order by participatory approach and involvement of people in maintaining national security as a basis to ensure successful implementation of the above law.
2. Continue to implement the policy of national unity by ongoing efforts in harmonization among different ethnic groups, religions within the country and preventing the disintegration of national and religion unity.
3. Timely put a stop to extremist movements which can lead to an unrest and social imbalance by preventing of all forms terrorism related activities in Cambodia.
4. Strengthening and expanding the cooperation among inter-agencies within the nation, regionally and globally base on the principle of respect, understanding, sharing information, good cooperation in stopping and cracking down the terrorisms.
On behalf of the Royal Government, I would like to ask the secretariat of the National Committee on Counter-Terrorism to exert their efforts in establishing the planning document on time and work hard on cooperation regarding the sharing of information and its analysis.
Once again, I would like to express my appreciation to Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen for participating and sharing your thoughts and opinions in this seminar which aims at formulating strategy and necessary measures to prevent all forms of terrorism activities and yet again let me extend my gratitude to the National Committee on Counter-Terrorism and international partners for organizing the seminar. I would support the organization of this seminar at leas once a year to review and revisit, and to develop policy and measures on counter-terrorism well as experiences and information sharing between relevant agencies both nationally and internationally.
Finally, may I wish you all, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, the five gems of Buddhist blessings. I would like to declare the closing of the National Seminar on Counter-Terrorism.
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