Press Releases: First U.S.-Qatar Counterterrorism Dialogue
Media Note
U.S. and Qatari officials met in Washington, DC on November 8 for the first U.S.-Qatari counterterrorism dialogue.
U.S. Coordinator for Counterterrorism Ambassador Nathan A. Sales led the U.S delegation, which included officials from the Departments of State, Homeland Security, Justice, and Treasury. The 11-member Qatari delegation was led by Major General Abdul Aziz al-Ansari, Chairman of Qatar’s National Counter Terrorism Committee, and included Dr. Mutlaq al-Qahtani, Special Envoy of the Minister of Foreign Affairs for Counterterrorism and Conflict Mediation, and officials from the Ministry of Interior, the State Security Bureau, and the National Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorism Finance Committee.
The delegations reviewed Qatar’s positive progress in implementing the U.S.-Qatar counterterrorism Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed in Doha on July 11 by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Qatari Foreign Minister Mohamed Bin Abdulrahman Al Thani. The MOU laid out our mutual commitments for increasing information sharing, disrupting terrorism financing flows, and intensifying counterterrorism activities. During the dialogue, both sides affirmed the progress made to date on implementing the MOU and committed to expanding our counterterrorism partnership. Topics discussed included regional terrorist threats, counterterrorism financing, regulation of the charitable sector, information sharing, and aviation security.
Building on this progress, the United States and Qatar will deepen their counterterrorism cooperation further, as exemplified by the recent visits to Doha of Secretary of State Tillerson (October 22-23) and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin (October 29-30). Both visits served to underscore the broad, robust ties between Qatar and the United States, especially in reaffirming the two countries’ joint efforts to defeat terrorism.