VIENNA CONFERENCE ON SECURITY AND FIGHT AGAINST TERRORISM ENDS

VIENNA, June 15 (Hina) - A conference on international security and the fight against terrorism, which gathered ministers, ambassadors and military experts from 52 countries and representatives of NATO, the League of Arab States and OSCE, finished in Vienna on Saturday. #L# The Vienna event gave clear signals for the further international cooperation in bids to counter terrorism, Austrian Defence Minister Herbert Scheibner said. He said the military aspects in the fight against terrorism, which were discussed at the conference, would further be elaborated. The Austrian minister added that the message of the conference was that the fight against terrorism was not the fight against Islam but against everybody who violated human rights. He pointed to NATO's new task in taking preventive measures against terrorist groups. Spanish Defence Minister Frederico Trillo-Figueroa Y Martinez- Conde described terrorism as a threat to everybody and to the security of all of us and as crime against values and principles of the civilisation. The Spaniard announced a series of concrete measures such as to intensify the intelligence communication and diplomatic efforts, and freeze assets and property of terrorist organisations and of those who help them. He urged all the countries to proclaim terrorism as a crime and to harmonise the legislation in this field. South-eastern Europe is an important close neighbour of Austria and the European Union, and it should be offered political prospects such as the admission into the European integration, said Austrian Foreign Minister Benita Ferrero-Waldner. She called on south-eastern European countries to step up cooperation in the clam-down on trans-border trafficking in drugs and other kinds of crime. Senior officials of the North Atlantic partnership council (EPIC - 46 countries) confirmed at this gathering their readiness for the joint fight against international terrorism, said Croatian Foreign Minister's assistant for multilateral cooperation, Vladimir Matek. He added that the participants had agreed that besides military and police measures, other measures should be taken to uproot terrorism and they include the eradication of poverty, inequality, regional conflicts, occupation and so on. On Friday evening Matek notified the conference of the efforts Zagreb took in the fight against terrorism. In this context, he reminded of a recent international exercise "Taming the Dragon" which took place in Croatia and announced that his country would host another international exercise this autumn on the prevention of attacks by chemical weapons. Matek described the Vienna conference as very useful. when participants (hina) ms