By Judy Aita
Washington File United Nations Correspondent

United Nations -- The Security Council held a ministerial-level meeting January 20 to emphasize the importance of the war on terror and to call on all nations to take urgent action to combat the international scourge.

Foreign ministers from 13 of the 15 nations who are members of the council attended the half-day session, which was intended to increase the pace of cooperation among nations and the monitoring of terrorists activities. They unanimously adopted a declaration calling on nations to take a number of steps to combat terrorism. The meeting was initiated by France, which is presiding over the council during the month of January.

The council also heard a report from British Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock, the chairman of its Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC) that was formed as part of resolution 1373, which requires nations to strengthen their laws and institutions and increase international cooperation to fight terrorism. The resolution was adopted in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks against the United States.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said that the war on terrorism must be waged "at every level, with every tool of statecraft, for as long as it takes."

Powell said that while the international community has made impressive progress in the fight against terrorism, "the challenge before us is to weave counterterrorism into the very fabric of our national institutions and our international institutions."

The secretary praised Pakistani Foreign Minister Mian Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri for his government's commitment to remain a key member of the global coalition against terrorism and of efforts to hunt down al-Qaeda and other terrorists.

"We must get every one of these terrorists and bring them to justice or destroy them," he said.

Referring to comments on Iraq during the meeting, Powell said that the council "must not shrink from our duties and our responsibilities" when U.N. weapons' inspectors report to the council January 27 on the efforts to rid Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction.

"We have much difficult work in the days ahead," Powell said, "but we cannot shrink from the responsibilities of dealing with a regime that has gone about development, acquiring, stocking of weapons of mass destruction; that committed terrorist acts against its neighbors and its own people; trampled human rights of its people and its neighbors."

"So however difficult the road ahead may be ... we must not shrink from the need to travel down that road. Hopefully there will be a peaceful solution, but if Iraq does not come into full compliance we must not shrink from the responsibility that we set before ourselves when we adopted (Security Council resolution) 1441," he said.

"Weapons of mass destruction in the hands of terrorists or states that support terrorists would represent a mortal danger to us all," he said. "So we must make the United Nations even more effective. And we must build even closer international cooperation to keep these weapons out of the hands of terrorists."

CTC Chairman Greenstock said that for all the committee's progress in monitoring and encouraging nations to take the necessary actions to fight terrorism, "achieving real improvements in practice, on the ground everywhere is taking too long."

Greenstock said that over the past 15 months the CTC received over 280 reports from 178 nations. The large number of reports shows that the vast majority of governments have begun to respond to the challenge. Thirteen nations have not submitted a report and two nations -- Liberia and Timor-Leste -- "have not yet even picked up the telephone," he said.

Whatever their problems, the 15 nations must report by March 31 or they will be not be in compliance with resolution 1373, Greenstock said.

Secretary General Kofi Annan said that the attendance of so many foreign ministers shows "the steady determination of the international community to address the scourge of terrorism" and is a sign of the importance placed on dealing effectively with the global threat.

"The United Nations must play an increasing role in dissuading would-be perpetrators of terror by setting effective international norms and issuing a clear message on the unacceptability of acts of violence targeting civilians," he said. "The United Nations must also do whatever it can to deny terrorists the opportunity to commit their appalling crimes."

The secretary general also warned nations, however, not to sacrifice liberties and democracy or use the fight against terrorism to justify military actions.

"We are seeing an increasing use of what I call the 'T-word' -- terrorism -- to demonize political opponents, to throttle freedom of speech and the press, and to de-legitimize legitimate political grievances," he said. "... Similarly, states fighting forms of unrest or insurgency are finding it tempting to abandon the slow, difficult, but sometimes necessary processes of political negotiation for the deceptively easy option of military action."

Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin of France presided over the session. Other foreign ministers attending the session included Tang Jiaxuan of China, Joschka Fischer of Germany, Jack Straw of the United Kingdom, Igor Ivanov of Russia, Francois Louceny Fall of Guinea, Francois Xavier Ngoubeyou of Cameroon, Jaoa Bernardo de Miranda of Angola, Ana Palacio of Spain, Solomon Passy of Bulgaria, and Luis Ernesto Derbez of Mexico.

The council adopted a declaration calling on nations to take a number of steps to prevent and suppress all active and passive support of terrorism. Nations should become a party to all international conventions and protocols relating to terrorism; help each other to the maximum extent possible to investigate, prosecute and punish terrorist acts wherever they occur; and cooperation closely to fully implement sanctions against al-Qaeda and the Taliban, especially denying them access to financial resources.

The council said that nations must help each other bring to justice those who finance, plan, support or commit terrorist acts or provide safe havens to terrorists.

The council declared that "terrorism in all its forms and manifestations constitutes one of the most serious threats to peace and security" and said that "any acts of terrorism are criminal and unjustified, regardless of their motivation."

Another meeting on terrorism is scheduled for March.