T&T will host a Unit­ed Na­tions con­fer­ence that will fo­cus on com­bat­ing the threat of ter­ror­ism in the re­gion ear­ly next year.

The meet­ing will sup­port the col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the Unit­ed Na­tions Of­fice of Counter-Ter­ror­ism (UN­COT) and Cari­com for the im­ple­men­ta­tion of a re­gion­al Counter-Ter­ror­ism Strat­e­gy.

Yes­ter­day, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley met with Vladimir Voronkov, Un­der-Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al of the Unit­ed Na­tions Counter-Ter­ror­ism Of­fice at the UN’s head­quar­ters in New York.

A re­lease from the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter (OPM) stat­ed: "Dr Row­ley wel­comed the op­por­tu­ni­ty to dis­cuss and deep­en Trinidad and To­ba­go’s co­op­er­a­tion with the Unit­ed Na­tions on mat­ters re­lat­ed to counter-ter­ror­ism which re­mains a mat­ter of sig­nif­i­cant im­por­tance to the Gov­ern­ment.

"The Prime Min­is­ter high­light­ed the work that has been done to com­bat ter­ror­ism and vi­o­lent ex­trem­ism in Trinidad and To­ba­go through, among oth­er things, the al­lo­ca­tion of en­hanced re­sources to as­sist in op­er­a­tional and in­tel­li­gence co­or­di­na­tion. This work al­so in­cludes the amend­ment of sev­er­al key pieces of leg­is­la­tion to pre­vent and counter acts of ter­ror­ism and its fi­nanc­ing in­clud­ing, most re­cent­ly, sig­nif­i­cant amend­ments to the An­ti-Ter­ror­ism Act in Au­gust 2018."

Dr Row­ley al­so met with Unit­ed Na­tions Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al An­tónio Guter­res. That meet­ing fo­cused on the chal­lenges to peace and se­cu­ri­ty in the re­gion. Dr Row­ley al­so ad­dressed the is­sue of cli­mate change and the oner­ous cri­te­ria for ac­cess to fi­nanc­ing faced by some de­vel­op­ing na­tions.

The Prime Min­is­ter will at­tend the open­ing of the gen­er­al de­bate of the UN’s Gen­er­al As­sem­bly to­day. This year’s theme is “Gal­va­niz­ing mul­ti­lat­er­al ef­forts for pover­ty erad­i­ca­tion, qual­i­ty ed­u­ca­tion, cli­mate ac­tion and in­clu­sion”.