Ministers and high level officials from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, accompanied by the Head(s) of counter-terrorism agencies structures and/or national security organs will participate in the conference. The ministerial meeting will be chaired by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, His Excellency Mr. António Guterres.

The objective of the meeting is to review progress on the implementation of the Joint Plan of Action (JPoA) in Central Asia. The JPoA is the first of its kind on regional implementation of the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy (A/RES/60/288). The meeting will also define future strategic priorities for the implementation of the Joint Plan of Action.

This event comes at the conclusion of the second phase of the project “Towards the Implementation of the Joint Plan of Action for the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy in Central Asia,” which is being jointly implemented by the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Centre (UNCCT) of the Counter Terrorism Implementation Task Force (CTITF) Office and the United Nations Regional Center for Preventive Diplomacy in Central Asia (UNRCCA), with the support of the European Union (EU) and Norway.

The High Level Dialogue will give political impetus to the need for Central Asian States to adopt a mutually reinforcing and coordinated strategic approach to address terrorism and the underlying conditions conducive to it.

The Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy was adopted by the General Assembly by consensus in 2006. The Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force (CTITF) was established to bring system-wide coordination and coherence to the United Nations’ counter-terrorism work. The Office coordinates a CTITF membership that extends to 36 UN entities, the World Custom Organization and INTERPOL. The United Nations Counter-Terrorism Centre (UNCCT) provides capacity building support to Member States in implementing the United Nations Global Counter-terrorism Strategy. It was established within the CTITF in 2011.