Anti-terrorism

Anti-terrorism activities of the OSCE Mission to Georgia

As part of the OSCE's comprehensive response to the global threat of terrorism, the Mission has assisted the Georgian Government in implementing United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolution 1373 on anti-terrorism measures and the UN's 13 universal conventions and protocols against terrorism, to which Georgia has been party since June 2006.

The Mission's projects have aimed to help the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs to develop its capacity to fight terrorism. A series of OSCE-organized crisis management training programmes began in April 2006. Additionally, the Mission has assisted the Georgian authorities by offering examples of best practices in the fight against terrorism from the experiences of other OSCE participating States.

Programmes to help central Georgian authorities better co-ordinate their activities and improve efficiency in the fight against terrorism have been complemented with training for regional Georgian law enforcement agencies, such as the five-day training course held in the region of Adjara in May 2007.

The Mission has worked to strengthen co-operation between the various Georgian state agencies and relevant international and regional organization. For example, the Mission has helped to establish more effective communication and co-operation between relevant departments of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and those in Austria, France, Romania and Spain. A vital part of this has been the development of a common system for gathering, analysing, storing and retrieving information about convicted or suspected terrorists and criminals.

The Mission has also supported participation by Georgian officials in international conferences on security-related issues such as shoulder-fired missiles, travel document security, border management, and ways to combat the trafficking and criminal use of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear materials and weapons.

With the help of United States and United Kingdom experts, the Mission assisted the Georgian Government in developing a Crisis Management Centre

The Mission, in co-operation with Cranfield University and New Scotland Yard, prepared the way for the establishment of a Bomb Data Centre at the Counter Terrorist Centre (CTC) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia.

As part of its long-term assistance programme, the Mission assisted the CTC in becoming part of the international information-sharing network on incidents of terrorist nature.

Recent activities

Law enforcement officials from Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan took part in a three-day anti-terrorism training course in Tbilisi in December 2008. Designed to improve co-operation among anti-terrorism agencies in the South Caucasus, the course focused on developing response plans to terrorist attacks, protecting property and infrastructure against possible terrorist activity and contemporary methods for combating terrorism.

The Mission's 11-month Transitional Institutional Support Programme, funded in part by Finland, Austria and the Czech Republic, concluded in March 2009 with a Mission-organized course on anti-terrorism. The programme involved border patrol police as well as the Revenue Service of Georgia and their counterparts in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey.