Male’, Maldives – The President’s Office on 13th December, yesterday, held its first exercise testing the National Terrorism Response Plan (NTRP) in partnership with the Government of the United Kingdom.
The opening remarks were given by the President of Maldives Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, outlining the high priority given by the Government on keeping the Maldives safe from terrorism and violent extremism. He also praised the NTRP as the first comprehensive multi-agency document that will help the country work towards achieving this.
Following the President, High Commissioner of the UK, Ms. Caron Rohsler gave her remarks expressing 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.
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 as outlined by the President’s speech.
The tabletop exercises held on Sunday were conducted in order to test protocols and provisions as well as to focus 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.