 "M J Akbar")
Let me thank the Government of Tajikistan, the United Nations, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the European Union for organising this conference on terrorism. Such has been the rise of this viral menace to our lives and values that this gathering would be considered necessary almost anywhere on the map. But Dushanbe carries a special relevance. Tajikistan has successfully fought, defeated and reversed the brutal tide of terrorism, and it did so during what I would describe as the most dangerous of decades, the 1990s.
It was a time when powerful interests, often backed by a state,
