The President’s Office, in partnership with the Government of the United Kingdom, held its first exercise testing the National Terrorism Response Plan (NTRP) today, 13th December. The President gave opening remarks, outlining the high priority the Government places on keeping the Maldives safe from terrorism and violent extremism, while praising the NTRP as the first comprehensive multi-agency document that will help the country work towards this end. His remarks were followed by remarks from the High Commissioner of the UK, Ms. Caron Rohsler, who expressed her appreciation for the Maldives' Government's willingness to collaborate on anti-terrorism efforts, and its openness towards positive engaging on other issues of mutual interest, such as climate change.
As outlined in the President’s remarks, the NTRP describes how the different agencies responsible for the Maldives’ national security will coordinate their efforts to help the country respond to and recover from a terrorist incident. The aforementioned tabletop exercises held today were conducted in order to test protocols and provisions, and focused on the strategic level response to a terrorist incident. Participants included cabinet ministers, members of the National Security Council, heads of agencies and members of our national security services.
After completion of this exercise the remainder of the week will be spent on conducting working sessions for other levels of response coordination in the NTRP. These sessions are also designed to enhance stakeholder collaboration with respect to meeting threats, and to ensure that the Maldives remains a safe country.