By Faten Omar
KUWAIT: Kuwait exerts great efforts to fight terrorism and dry out its sources and plays an effective role as a member of the Global Coalition against Daesh during its co-leadership of the coalition's Foreign Terrorist Fighters Working Group, in addition to Turkey and the Netherlands, a Kuwaiti official said.
Addressing a meeting of the group held in Kuwait on Tuesday, Kuwaiti Deputy Foreign Minister Ambassador Mansour Al-Otaibi said the gathering aimed at finding a clear-cut mechanism to reintegrate foreign fighters into their societies after putting them under rehabilitation programs following fair trials pursuant to human rights principles.
Otaibi stressed the country's support for international efforts to combat terrorist groups, adding this is the second consecutive meeting Kuwait has hosted in less than a year, which shows Kuwait's keenness to enhance cooperation with the countries of the global coalition.
"Kuwait is also keen to exert efforts to facilitate the process of transferring foreign fighters to their countries of origin in cooperation with the United States and other countries," he said, pointing out that the main objective of forming the working group within the framework of the coalition is to limit the flow of fighters to conflict areas, where there is always a need for continuous coordination and the formation of new mechanisms.
Otaibi said in a statement to the press that before the establishment of the coalition, Kuwait was committed to working to confront terrorism financing and committed to implementing it, but it is difficult to completely eliminate it and the danger still exists, so coordination and meetings are necessary.
Otaibi mentioned Kuwait has contributed to the transfer of around 648 fighters and their families from 12 countries on different continents since Sept 2019, stressing the importance of continuing to activate the guiding principles of Kuwait, which were adopted in Feb 2018 at the first ministerial meeting of the coalition to be held in Asia, which emphasized thwarting the sources of funding for IS, disrupting its ability to carry out terrorist acts and exchanging information in this regard.
"This in addition to transferring and facilitating the return of terrorist fighters to their countries, providing all possible means for rehabilitation and integration into societies, and supporting Iraq in the transition from the stage of restoring stability to the stage of sustainable reconstruction," Otaibi said.