First Qatar-US counter-terrorism dialogue held

US and Qatari officials met in Washington, DC on November 8 for the first bilateral counter-terrorism dialogue.

US Co-ordinator for Counter-terrorism Ambassador Nathan A Sales led the American delegation, which included officials from the Departments of State, Homeland Security, Justice, and Treasury.

The 11-member Qatari delegation was led by Major General Abdul Aziz al-Ansari, Chairman of Qatar’s National Counter-terrorism Committee, and included Dr Mutlaq al-Qahtani, Special Envoy of the Minister of Foreign Affairs for Counter-terrorism and Conflict Mediation, and officials from the Ministry of Interior, the State Security Bureau, and the National Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorism Finance Committee.

A press note issued by the US State Department said the delegations reviewed Qatar’s positive progress in implementing the US-Qatar counter-terrorism Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in Doha on July 11 by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and HE Qatari Foreign Minister Mohamed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani.

"The MoU laid out our mutual commitments for increasing information sharing, disrupting terrorism financing flows, and intensifying counter-terrorism activities. During the dialogue, both sides affirmed the progress made to date on implementing the MoU and committed to expanding our counter-terrorism partnership. Topics discussed included regional terrorist threats, counter-terrorism financing, regulation of the charitable sector, information sharing, and aviation security.

"Building on this progress, the United States and Qatar will deepen their counter-terrorism co-operation further, as exemplified by the recent visits to Doha of Secretary of State Tillerson (October 22-23) and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin (October 29-30). Both visits served to underscore the broad, robust ties between Qatar and the United States, especially in reaffirming the two countries’ joint efforts to defeat terrorism," the statement added.