MINISTER of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Senator AJ Nicholson, has said that by co-sponsoring United Nations Security Council Resolution 2178, Jamaica affirmed its support of the need to combat terrorism.

“By co-sponsoring the resolution, along with 103 other countries, Jamaica demonstrated that we are serious and responsible members of the international community who do not stand on the sidelines of the major challenges of our time,” Senator Nicholson told the Senate on Friday at Gordon House.

He was informing the Senate on Jamaica’s sponsorship of the resolution unanimously approved by the 15-member UN Security Council on Wednesday, September 24. The resolution addressed the “growing threat” posed by foreign terrorist fighters, a measure US President Barack Obama insisted “must be matched and translated into action” to have any effect.

Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago were the only two Caricom countries among the 104 nations which sponsored the resolution. Jamaica’s team to the 69th assembly of the UN in New York in September was led by Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, who was accompanied by Nicholson and Minister of Water, Land, Environment and Climate Change Robert Pickersgill.

On Thursday, Opposition Spokesman on Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Edmund Bartlett, in a release, said that while the opposition supported the objectives of the resolution, it was concerned that: Caricom did not consult on a regional position on the resolution, as required under the Treaty of Chaguaramas; and, two weeks after the vote, the Jamaica Government did not communicate its action and the reasoning behind it to the nation, although Trinidad’s Prime Minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, had informed her countrymen immediately upon her return home.

“Certainly, the matter of global security and the deleterious effect of terrorism on global peace efforts is a matter of utmost importance to the Jamaican people, as much as it is to any other Caricom nation, and should be approached with the full backing of the people of Jamaica,” Bartlett insisted.

In his statement to the Senate, Nicholson admitted that it would have been good for Caricom to have acted in unison on the resolution, but claimed that the events were too “fast moving” for consultations.

“It would have been good for all Caricom states to have acted in unison on this resolution, in keeping with the Treaty of Chaguaramas which calls on member states to establish mechanisms to coordinate foreign policy. However, the reality on the ground at such conferences is that events are fast-moving, fluid and dynamic, and there is often the need for individual nations to make their own decisions without the benefit of regional coordination,” the minister commented.

“This was the case of the UN Security Council resolution on threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts. Jamaica had to consider the text very carefully and to take account of the international geo-political context in which the resolution was being tabled,” he said.

He noted that the resolution enjoyed a “broad consensus” to the extent that it was adopted unanimously by the security council, including all five permanent members.

“It will serve to enhance international cooperation to prevent the flow of foreign terrorist fighters to and from conflict zones, and provide a framework to build capacity in all states,” he stated.