بســم اللّـه الرّحمـن الرّحيــم
The Chief Guest, Commissioner of Police Mohamed Hameed,
Vice Chief of Defense Force, Brigadier General Abdul Raheem Abdul Latheef,
Director General of National Counter Terrorism Centre, Brigadier General Zakariyya Mansoor,
Deputy Controller of Immigration, Ibrahim Ashraf.
IOM’s Senior Regional Immigration and Border Management Specialist for Asia and Pacific, Mr. Donato Colucci, International Subject Matter Experts,
Dedicated Law Enforcement Officers,
Ladies and Gentleman,
Assalamalaikum and a very Good Morning to you all.
It gives me much pleasure to be amongst you, this morning, on this wonderful occasion.
First and foremost, I would like to thank our Government, UN Office of Counter-Terrorism and International Organization for Migration for organizing this multi-stakeholder workshop.
And I would like to welcome you all to this three-day national workshop “Addressing Border Security and Counter Terrorism by Strengthening Interagency Cooperation in Border Management.
I have said this on numerous occasions and will say it again that border security is a shared responsibility of national and international partners alike, because we know that in the current threat environment, that there is a direct nexus between border security counter terrorism efforts.
With the rise of global terrorism involving foreign terrorist fighter’s moving through control border channels has become a serious challenge.
And make no mistake, that no country, big or small, is immune to the threat of global terrorism.
Individuals engaged in terrorist activities many at times, commit these terrible crimes using fraudulent documents and fraudulent identities.
As a nation to respond to the threat of terrorism, the recent amendments made to domestic legal framework, requires all national stakeholders to coordinate their efforts, to share information and intelligence, to monitor, to restrict and to take appropriate actions on suspected individuals engaged in terrorism activities.
As the national nodal agency to control movements of people across our borders, Maldives Immigration is determined to work together with all partners, national and international alike to strengthen border security to address Counter Terrorism.
Our response will always be joint effort and a team effort to strengthen Maldives Border Security.
Before concluding once again I would like to thank UNCCT, IOM and all Immigration officers engage in making this workshop a reality.
To conclude, I would like to thank, the Chief Guest, Commissioner of Police Mohamed Hameed, for inaugurating this event and for his presence.
I would also like to thank senior officials of respective agencies, for taking their time from their busy schedule to be with us today.
And finally, let me thank the subject matter experts who are here to provide their technical expertise.
Once again thank you all on behalf of myself and Maldives Immigration.
والسّـلام عليـكم