Interior Minister Annelies Verlinden (CD&V) is in Washington this week for meetings with representatives of various security services and with her counterpart Alejandro Mayorkas. She will also visit the United Nations in New York.
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It is the first visit by a Belgian minister to the United States since the country reopened its borders for international travelers who have been vaccinated against the corona virus just a week ago. Belgian diplomatic circles say that the visit shows the importance of cooperation with American colleagues.
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Minister Verlinden will be accompanied by the Commissioner-General of the Federal Police, Marc De Mesmaeker, and the Director-General of the Crisis Center, Bart Raeymaekers. They will meet in Washington next week with representatives from security agencies such as the Secret Service, the FBI, the DEA and Fema. Verlinden will also meet the Minister of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas.
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Minister Verlinden mainly wants to convey the message that investing in safety and security equals investing in more cooperation, according to her cabinet. It emphasizes that this cooperation has already borne fruit in many specific cases. For example, the encrypted chat service Sky ECC was able to crack the Belgian police, an important means of communication in the criminal environment.
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counter-terrorism
Minister Verlinden will also visit the United Nations in New York. She will meet, among others, the Belgian director of the UN Directorate of the Anti-Terrorism Committee, Michèle Coninsx. Finally, the minister will lay flowers at a memorial site for the victims of the terrorist attack of 31 October 2017 in New York, in which a Belgian woman also lost her life.
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Yesterday Minister Verlinden already had several meetings on counterterrorism. From her competence of Democratic Renewal, there were also contacts about the ‘democracy summit’ that US President Joe Biden is planning in December. At this virtual summit, heads of state and government leaders discuss democratic renewal.
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