On June 17-20, 2019 Sri Lankan delegation headed by Ambassador Dayan Jayatilleka and including Additional Secretary of Defence of Sri Lanka Mr. Anuradha Wijekoon took part in the X International Meeting of High-Level Officials Responsible for Security Matters held in Ufa at the initiative of the Security Council of the Russian Federation.
This high-level gathering of ministers, aides to presidents and prime ministers, secretaries supervising national, regional and international security, and heads of intelligence services enabled a global exchange of ideas on urgent issues of security with many agreeing that coordinated and united action is needed.
The presentations from around the world highlighted the need for cooperation between states and intelligence services to combat the growing dangers of radicalization through social media; cyber threats and terrorism, some emanating both from state and non-state actors. Many delegations spoke frankly about unilateral actions that threaten state sovereignty and diminish the capacity of states to respond effectively to these new threats. All delegations expressed their gratitude to the organizers for facilitating such an important event.
This year the Conference brought delegations from 119 countries from Europe, America, Africa, Middle East and Asia to exchange their views on the issues of global security including combating hybrid and terrorist threats and other modern challenges, prospects for cooperation in the field of overcoming the consequences of armed conflicts and humanitarian disasters as well as ensuring information security and equal partnership in the global information space.
Opening the Meeting General Nikolay Patrushev, Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, read out President Vladimir Putin’s address, in which he said that “creating a reliable, flexible, indivisible and equal for all security systems at the regional and global levels” is the common goal for all countries of the world.
At the first Plenary Session on ‘Ensuring national security and sustainable socio-economic development of states in the face of growing hybrid threats’ Sergey Naryshkin, Director of the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation, stated that if the Western community of states is not mature enough to move to a better world order, then other countries should project a global system "without the West". Ambassador Jayatilleka made his presentation on "The Proliferation of Terrorism, Hybrid Threats and "Statocide"", after which many heads of delegations congratulated the Ambassador and wanted to follow up on those ideas in other parts of the global South. 43 other heads of delegations made their presentations in this session.
Ambassador Jayatilleka also spoke at the round table discussion on ‘Enhancing international cooperation to combat spread of terrorist ideology and counter self-radicalization of lone terrorists” moderated by Deputy Secretary of Security Council of the Russian Federation Yury Kokov.
Apart from plenary sessions and round tables, the heads of delegations held bilateral meetings and multilateral discussions on the sidelines of the Security Conference. Ambassador Jayatilleka met with Deputy Secretary of Security Council of the Russian Federation Yury Kokov and discussed pressing issues of countering international terrorism and need for its universal definition. This theme of a universal definition was taken up by Deputy National Secretary Advisor to Prime Minister Modi, and Ambassador Jayatilleka in their presentations at the Round table.
Ambassador Jayatilleka personally congratulated General Nikolai Patrushev on the event. General Patrushev mentioned the possibility of a high-level visit to Sri Lanka to Ambassador Jayatilleka.
Ambassador Jayatilleka was interviewed by the TV station of the Bashkir region and Iranian Media about his thoughts on the conference.
