G-8 Interior and Justice Ministers Recognise that Terrorists' Activities are Coordinated

Chiefs of the G-8 countries' law-enforcement agencies have recognised that Georgia hosts training bases of international terrorists.

Russian Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov told journalists Wednesday that his colleagues and justice ministers from the G-8 states agreed at the recent meeting in Paris that "there are centres of international terrorism in Georgia." According to him, the consolidation of all countries' efforts in the fight against international terrorism, prevention of acts of terror and liquidation of terrorists' funding channels were at the centre of the meeting.

The meeting's participants agreed that terrorist acts plotted and perpetrated around the world are mainly co-ordinated and international terrorists are trained in special centres, Gryzlov stressed.

"We have been speaking about this since 1999, but it was only after the September 11 acts of terror that the world community first paid attention to this," he added.

According to Gryzlov, the gunmen operating in the North Caucasus receive money, organisational and ideological support from abroad. Those who plot and fund acts of terror are all abroad. The Russian Interior Minister noted that "there are much more than two or three foreign funds funding terrorism within Russia." "Phone conversations we have many times wiretapped prove this," he elaborated. "We have many times found foreign citizens among gunmen, while detaining and eliminating them," he added. "Therefore the fight on terrorism was a major issue at the recent Paris meeting," Gryzlov said.