Saudi Arabia’s Permanent Representative the United Nations, Abdullah bin Yahya Al-Mualami, warned that any global framework on countering terrorist propaganda should not adopt extremist rhetoric directed against Islam and Muslims.  Addressing the UN Security Council debate on countering the narratives and ideologies of terrorism. Ambassador Al-Mualami stressed that terrorism has no justification in any place and under any circumstances and that any counter terrorist ideology should be comprehensive and consistent and not directed against Islam and Muslims.

The ambassador welcomed the adoption by the Security Council of the presidential statement on the fight against terrorism and expressed commitment to all its content and renewed the Kingdom’s support for the UN’s Counter-Terrorism Committee.

Ambassador Al-Mualami warned against exclusionary extremist thought which advocates hatred of the other party. He said that the promoters of the violent rhetoric are no less dangerous than the perpetrators of terrorist acts and that failure to counter them threatens us to fall into further cycles of violence, murder and terrorism.

The Saudi ambassador pointed out that the Palestinian cause remains the main cause for the Islamic and Arab nations, where Israel continues to use all kinds of violence and excessive force against the unarmed Palestinian people.

Furthermore, the continuation of the Al-Assad regime’s heinous crimes against Syrian people by his forces, militias loyal to him and sectarian foreign groups, has created an environment conducive to the strengthening of extremist rhetoric and violence, which contributed to the creation and spreading of Daesh (ISIS) and other terrorist groups. 

“We find that the ruling regime and terrorist groups in Syria are two sides of the same coin, feeding one another and that it is unrealistic to expect the possibility of defeating terrorism in Syria without achieving a real transfer of power according to relevant US Security Council resolutions and Geneva 1.