During the two sessions, Turkmenistan authorities deepened their knowledge on the normative and institutional frameworks and regulatory measures to prevent and counter terrorist illicit access to Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW), in particular through illicit manufacturing, trafficking and diversion. The workshop focused on raising awareness of the legal international and regional instruments and participants analyzed the national legislation and regulatory frameworks on firearms to identify vulnerabilities, gaps and another loopholes, and identified potential solutions to strengthen the regulatory frameworks on firearms, specially in marking, record keeping, transfer controls, collection, deactivation, and destruction of firearms. The experts discussed the possibilities to develop the national legislation and align it to the international instruments and established an action plan with specific actions to strengthen the legal and regulatory frameworks on firearms and to promote regional harmonization of laws and practices.
The workshop was developed in the framework of the implementation of the project “Addressing the terrorism-arms-crime-nexus (TACN): Preventing and combatting the illicit trafficking of small arms and light weapons and their illicit supply to terrorists”, supporting the implementation of Security Council Resolution 2370 (2017) and the 2015 Madrid Guiding Principles on Foreign Terrorist Fighters and its 2018 Addendum.
Ahead of the workshop, the project team analyzed the national legislation and prepared a legislative analysis report that included 10 recommendations to update and harmonize the national legislation in line with the international and regional instruments related to countering illicit SALW trafficking and its links to terrorism. The participants discussed the outcomes of the legislative analysis report and agreed upon the recommendation and further action to update the national legislation.
As Turkmenistan will be subject of revision through the Mechanism for the Review of the Implementation of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and the Protocols thereto, a basic introductory session was presented to the participants in preparation of a specialized workshop that will be organized for Turkmenistan by the Secretariat of the Conference of the Parties to UNTOC in April 2023.
