U.N. Starts Debate on International Terrorism

U.N. Starts Debate on International Terrorism

---

The 56th General Assembly session of the United States kicked off Monday a week- long general debate on international terrorism which will hear the views of more than 150 countries.

The gathering is the first global forum on terrorism since the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and Pentagon in Washington, which claimed the lives of more than 6,000 people from more than 60 countries.

New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani on Monday spoke at the United Nations on the issue as the first mayor to address the United Nations in nearly 50 years. He urged the United Nations to hold accountable and ostracize any nation that supports terrorism.

"Unanimously, we must say we will not give in to terrorism," he said in an impassioned speech before the start of the debate.

"This is not a time further study or vague directives," he said. "The evidence of terrorism, brutality and inhumanity, is lying beneath the rubble of the World Trade Center less than two miles (some three kilometers) from where we meet today."

Opening the debate, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said, " This important meeting of the General Assembly has a critical role to play in this. It must not be merely symbolic. It must signal the beginning of immediate, practical and far-reaching changes in the way this Organization and its member states act against terrorism."

"The urgent business of the United Nations must now be to develop a long-term strategy, in order to ensure global legitimacy for the struggle ahead," he said. "The legitimacy that the United Nations conveys can ensure that the greatest number of states are able and willing to take the necessary and difficult steps -- diplomatic, legal and political -- that are needed to defeat terrorism."

The General Assembly was meeting three days after the Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution requiring all 189 U.N. member nations to deny money, support or sanctuary to terrorists.

It was introduced and approved in just over 24 hours by the often plodding U.N. Security Council. Under the resolution, all countries must make the "willful" financing of terrorism a criminal offense, immediately freeze terrorist-related funds and prevent movement of individuals and groups suspected of having terrorist connections.

Nations must also deny terrorists any "safe haven" and speed the exchange of information, especially on the actions and movements of terrorists, the resolution said.