Morocco hosts the Global Counterterrorism Forum (GCTF) in Marrakech

Morocco hosted in Marrakech the Global Counterterrorism Forum (GCTF) on December 15 and 16th, 2014. The meeting, co-chaired by Morocco and the Netherlands, brought together senior officials and experts from forty countries as well as international and regional organizations.

 

The GCTF was launched in 2011 to provide a venue for national counterterrorism officials and practitioners to meet their counterparts in different regions to share experiences, expertise, strategies and capacity building programmes.

 

Speaking at the opening of the inaugural meeting, the Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Nacer Bourita recalled Morocco’s efforts to address the scourge of terrorism through a comprehensive and pragmatic national strategy. He added that such a strategy carries His Majesty King Mohammed VI instructions for a realistic approach based on three pillars of good security and governance, adapting the legal framework for the development of the phenomenon of terrorism, treatment of social insecurity through sustainable human development, in addition to ongoing efforts to preserve the identity and authentic religious and cultural values.

 

For its part, the special envoy of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, Ambassador Piet de Klerk, stressed the importance and timeliness of the theme of this working group considering the worrisome growth of the phenomenon of foreign fighters terrorists and its tans-border nature that requires effective international cooperation.

 

Established by the Foreign Ministers of the Member States September 22, 2011 in New York, the GCTF is also  a unique platform for policy makers and experts from key partner states in different parts of the world to share ideas and best practices to block the road to religious extremism and international terrorism that threaten the member countries.

 

Besides Morocco, GCTF includes among its 30 members, the US, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, China, Japan, Canada, Spain, Australia, India, UAE, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and New Zealand.

 

Aware of this persistent and critical issue, Morocco and the Netherlands launched in September 2013, an initiative under the auspices of GCTF to tackle the phenomenon of foreign terrorist fighters. This initiative aims to bring together practitioners and policy makers from a range of countries and in various disciplines to share lessons learned, good practices developed and the difficulties encountered in responding to this threat in all its forms.

 

The good practices contained in the memorandum Hague-Marrakech from this initiative, intended to inform and guide governments as they develop policies, programs and procedures to address the phenomenon of foreign terrorist fighters. These good practices can also be used to define technical bilateral or multilateral aid or other assistance for capacity building provided in this area. 

 

This memorandum presents a set of best practices to address the phenomenon of foreign terrorist fighters into four categories: radicalization leading to violent extremism, recruitment and facilitation, travel and combat, and return and reintegration.