The two-day International Conference on Global Fight against Terrorism was successfully brought to a close in Tehran on Sunday.

The conference, which was the first of its kind, gathered together officials and scholars from sixty countries who said yes to Iran’s call for a world without terrorism and extended a hand of cooperation to the Islamic Republic in the campaign against this evil phenomenon.
Five presidents, including the Pakistani, Afghan, and Iraqi presidents, whose countries are some of the main victims of terrorism, also saw a ray of hope shining in the Iranian capital for the nations victimized by terror and enthusiastically participated in the event in the hope of drumming up support for a global campaign against terrorism through sharing with others the untold suffering that terrorists have inflicted on their people.
The fact that Iran took the initiative to hold such a conference and set in train the process of holding a conference on the campaign against terrorism in rotating host countries on a yearly basis can be looked at from various angles.
First of all, Iran’s decision to host the conference indicated that the country, as one of the main victims of terrorism, is true to its word and is hammering away at achieving a workable solution to the scourge of terrorism at the international level.
In fact, Iran woke the participating representatives up to the fact that it is serious in its efforts to help uproot terrorism, unlike certain Western countries that have taken advantage of the slogan “war on terrorism” to establish a military presence in certain countries, maintain a tight rein on Southwest Asia, achieve their political objectives, and advance their illegitimate interests.
Iran also shed light on the fact that the hegemonistic powers are making every endeavor to sully the names of freedom fighters by labeling them terrorists while the true terrorists are at their beck and call.
In addition, the event helped Iran foil the enemies’ propaganda campaign against the country to a certain extent and perhaps helped prevent further denigration of the image of Islam and the reputation of Iran through assembling representatives of a number of countries and informing them of the realities on the ground.
Above all, Iran took a key step to show that a world without terrorism would not look like a distant dream if all countries unite in the struggle against terrorism.
Iran also encouraged other countries to host similar conferences.
Iran has taken considerable steps in the campaign against terrorism, and the conference proved Iran’s goodwill to the world once again, but there is still much more to do.
Effective mechanisms should be developed to achieve concrete results from such conferences and to make sure that the slogans chanted would not remain mere slogans and would be effectively put into practice, otherwise no one will take similar conferences seriously, and such an important issue will be marginalized.
In addition, an international center should be established to coordinate counter-terrorism activities and urge the countries that pledge to cooperate in the campaign against terrorism to make binding commitments in this regard.
It is hoped that all the world’s countries will pool their efforts to combat terrorism more systematically and will keep track of whether the promises made at the conferences in question are being effectively fulfilled or not in order to help make the dream of a world without terrorism a reality.