Morocco, UAE upgrade cooperation in fight against terrorism financing, weapons proliferation

Morocco’s National Commission for the Implementation of Sanctions Imposed by UN Security Council Resolutions on Terrorism, Arms Proliferation and their Financing (CNASNU), and the Executive Office for Control and Non-Proliferation of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in Dubai on Thursday, to strengthen and develop means of cooperation and partnership in areas of common interest.

The MoU was signed on the sidelines of a workshop on “Combating the Financing of Terrorism – Investigations and New Technologies”, organized by the UAE Executive Office for Control and Non-Proliferation, in partnership with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), on November 15 and 16 in Dubai, according to a CNASNU statement.

The Memorandum was signed by Director of the UAE Executive Office, Talal Al Tunaiji, and Director of Criminal Affairs, Pardons and Crime Detection (DAPGDC) of the Ministry of Justice, Hicham Mellati, in his capacity as Chairman of CNASNU, in the presence of the Chairman of the National Financial Intelligence Authority (ANRF), Jawhar Nafissi, as well as members of CNASNU, the statement said.

The MoU aims to strengthen measures to freeze without delay the property and other assets of persons, entities or organizations involved in the financing of terrorism and weapons proliferation, and to detect cases of non-compliance with commitments relating to the implementation of targeted financial sanctions, noted the statement.

The signing of this MoU is an important step towards the establishment of a strengthened system between regional counterparts as a regional lever for a more effective fight against the financing of terrorism and arms proliferation, notably through the consolidation of regional cooperation and initiatives to share best practices and transfer expertise to dissipate the sources of terrorist financing and arms proliferation, the statement stressed.