Official website of the President of Russia

36 months after the terrorist attacks on the United States of America and six months after the terrorist attacks in Madrid, the Russian Federation has become the target for vile attacks of international terrorism.

The monstrous terrorist act in Beslan directed against innocent children is a new dimension of the threat that international terrorism represents for all of mankind. We are unanimous that terrorism must be fought together everywhere.

Today we would like to honour the memory of victims of terrorism from both our countries and all over the world. We share the sorrow of their families. We express our sympathies to everyone suffering from the consequences of terrorist acts. We acknowledge our duty to do everything we can to protect people’s lives from the disaster that terrorism represents. Our citizens have the right to safety, freedom and protection from terrorism. At the same time, we realise that it is of the utmost importance to observe all human rights and fundamental freedoms, and also the principle of supremacy of law, including in the response to terrorism and to the fear of terrorism.

Terrorism is a threat to international peace and security, and is an infringement of democracy and freedom, openness and tolerance. Today international terrorism, along with the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, regional conflicts and organised crime, is the most dangerous challenge to the security of both our countries. Russia and Germany will do everything in their power to fight all forms of terrorism in accordance with the UN Charter and the obligations stated in Security Council resolution 1373 (2001). Both countries stress the central and coordinating role of the UN in the universal war on terrorism, and once more state that in taking any measures to fight terrorism, they will observe international legal norms concerning human rights and refugees’ rights, and also the norms of international humanitarian law.

Russia and Germany condemn all acts and forms of terrorism, whatever their cause, as crimes that have no justification. Both countries will increase cooperation to fight the global problem of terrorism and its origins even more effectively. They are active participants in the world coalition of the war on terrorism. The terrorist threat concerns all the countries in the world. International terrorist acts are a threat to the entire international community.

We will continue to increase cooperation between our countries in the war on terrorism. We will:

- jointly increase general efforts in the war on terrorism, such as in the framework of the United Nations, the G-8, the Russia-NATO Council, the OSCE and the European Council;

- constantly fight the financing of terrorism and implement the recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF);

- to increase our cooperation with the aim of preventing terrorist acts, detecting terrorists at an early stage, and conducting investigations on them and taking them to court;

- coordinate and increase our efforts on preventing terrorists from obtaining or developing nuclear, chemical, radiological or biological weapons and means for delivering them, and also materials, equipment and technology connected with them;

- to increase the exchange of information on terrorist threats and the results of assessments/analyses of these threats;

- to ensure security of international transport and effective border control;

- to cooperate in the war on cyber-terrorism and in preventing illegal use of electronic means of communication and cyberspace freedom by those who threaten public security;

- to cooperate closely in order to increase our capabilities in preventing terrorist acts and alleviating their consequences, also against our foreign representatives;

- to take measures to study and reduce the factors that enable the recruitment of terrorists, especially suicide terrorists;

- to cooperate in providing support to third-party countries that ask the UN for help in fighting international terrorism.

We entrust the Russian-German high-level work group on security issues with the task to present us with a detailed work programme on achieving these goals.