Addressing the Parliamentary Assembly today, Jürgen Ligi, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Estonia, mentioned the recent events that had taken place during Estonia’s Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers, including notably the attempted coup d’état in Turkey. “It is important that the Committee of Ministers and the Parliamentary Assembly, the two main statutory bodies of our Organisation, work closely to support the Turkish authorities and the people of Turkey,” he said.
Referring to the fight against terrorism, he told member states that “more needs to be done” and encouraged them to continue their counter-terrorism efforts and to sign and ratify the Additional Protocol to the Council of Europe Convention on the Prevention of Terrorism, the main aim of which is to prevent and combat the phenomenon of “foreign terrorist fighters”. “The Protocol is the only existing international instrument in the world which offers legal tools and practical measures to address this problem,” he pointed out.
Mr Ligi also outlined the actions taken by Estonia during its Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, which ends in November. Children’s rights were among the priorities of the Estonian Chairmanship, particularly in relation to the migration crisis. “Estonia will continue to address the subject of children in the refugee crisis at a high-level conference on children’s rights to be held in Tallinn, on 4 November,” he announced. (more...)