UN Appoints Russian Diplomat Vladimir Voronkov as Chief of newly established United Nations Counter-Terrorism Centre

The UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has appointed Russian diplomat Vladimir Voronkov to head the newly established UN Counter-Terrorism Centre (UNCCT), despite growing tensions between the US and Russia.
The Vladimir Voronkov has been given the rank of Under-Secretary-General. The new Under-Secretary-General would Chair the Task Force and Executive Director of the UN Counter-Terrorism Centre.
The newly established UNCCT has been mandated to oversee the counterterrorism efforts of 36 UN-funded programmes under the ambit of a variety of UN agencies, 12 inter-agency working groups, Interpol, and the World Customs Organisation.
Voronkov has an experience of more than 30 years in Russia’s foreign service, serving primarily on UN-related issues. He had served as Russia’s ambassador to Vienna and has been serving as an ambassador to UN organisations since 2011.

UNCCT

Last week, the United Nations General Assembly has approved the establishment of a new United Nations office of counter-terrorism to help Member States implement UN’s global counter-terrorism strategy.
With the creation of new UN office of counter terrorism, UN will transfer the relevant functions out of the UN Department of Political Affairs (DPA) into the new body. The Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force Office (CTITF) and the UN Counter-Terrorism Centre (UNCCT) currently under the DPA will be transferred to the new office together with existing staff and associated budgetary resources.
India has welcomed the creation a new UN office on counter-terrorism. It expects that the newly established centre would help in aligning UN with the changing needs and international reality in the fight against terrorism. India has been repeatedly stressing on the need to have a separate office for counter-terrorism as the presence of as many as 31 entities within the United Nations dealing with some aspect of countering terrorism lacked coherence and coordination while dealing with terrorism.

Month: Current Affairs - June, 2017