Vietnam ready to cooperate in terrorism, extremism fight: official

Vietnam always stands ready to cooperate with the international community within multilateral and bilateral frameworks to fight terrorism and violent extremism, Deputy Minister of Public Security Pham Dung said at a conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The International Conference on Deradicalisation and Countering Violent Extremism 2016 (IDC 2016) is taking place in the Malaysian capital city on January 25 – 26. It drew officials and scholars from the ASEAN member nations and nine strategic partners of Malaysia: Australia, France, Italy, Japan, China, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the UK, and the US.

Heads of the delegation to the conference and Malaysian PM Najib Razak

Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Home Affairs Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said the IDC 2016 aims to enhance cooperation among all countries and information sharing among security agencies to deal with all forms of terrorist attacks, especially suicide bombings which are a growing threat.

He said he hopes cooperation, and information and experience sharing at the IDC 2016 will be continued in the following years.

Meanwhile, Malaysian PM Najib Razak underlined threats from the so-called Islamic State to his country and vowed to prevent terrorism and violent extremism from entering Malaysia.

At the conference, participants discussed the situation, challenges and measures to prevent violent extremism, along with countries’ cooperation in this field.

Deputy Minister Pham Dung, who led the Vietnamese delegation, asked ASEAN nations to tighten collaboration among their law enforcement bodies, to control and prevent the sponsorship for and websites that incite or popularise violent extremism and terrorism.

They should coordinate closely to manage entry and exit, solve migration-related issues, build communication channels, and perfect bilateral and multilateral cooperation mechanisms in radicalisaton and violent extremism prevention and combat.

The countries also need to hold regular regional and international forums to update information and boost cooperation while supporting one another to improve the capacity for coping with the problem, he noted.