Brussels, 03/11/2010 (Agence Europe) - Aviation security and explosives experts will be taking part in an extraordinary meeting in Brussels on Friday to discuss potential responses to the new terrorist threats of parcel bombs sent from Greece and Yemen, the European Commission announced on Wednesday. “The Commission and the Belgian Presidency have asked for a special meeting of aviation security experts of the member states to assess the responses to the threats recently verified”, said the Commission spokesperson for home affairs, Michele Cercone. This meeting, which will be attended, amongst others, by experts from the explosives detection network, will also provide an opportunity to consider various changes to the rules in force. The Commission is also working very closely with a number of international partners such as the United States, Canada and Australia on these issues, Cercone stressed. The subject of the recent terrorist threat will also be discussed over lunch at the meeting of the European home affairs ministers, which will be held in Brussels on 8 November.
Berlin calls on EU to act. Germany wants the European Union to decide on new measures at its December Summit to tackle the terrorist threat in air freight, a government source in Berlin announced on Wednesday. “The mid-December Summit should take position on proposals at European level”, said this source, quoted by Reuters. The security rules currently in force at European level relate only to packages sent from a member state of the EU, Cercone commented, but pointed out that no proposals are envisaged at this stage regarding any block on cargoes from third countries.
Packages in Greece: Al Qaeda not responsible. The Greek police were on the alert on Wednesday after it was discovered that some 10 parcel bombs had been sent to foreign embassies in Athens, European leaders, including Silvio Berlusconi, Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy, and a number of European institutions - Europol in the Netherlands and the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg - since Monday (EUROPE 10248). The senders of these booby-trapped packages, which were sent from Athens, have “no links” to “organised international terrorist groups”, Greek Foreign Minister Dimitris Droutsas announced on Thursday. Even so, the Greek authorities have decided to suspend all dispatches of international mail or packages by air for 48 hours from Wednesday. So far, no group has claimed responsibility for these packages, but anti-terrorist experts suspect “Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei”, a Greek anarchist organisation. In Yemen, the national authorities announced on Tuesday that a major anti-terrorism operation against Al Qaeda had started. Amongst other things, the operations aimed to bring to justice the Saudi activist, Ibrahim Hassan al Assiri, who is suspected of being the architect of the parcel bomb attacks foiled on Friday on board aircraft from Yemen. The parcels were destined for the United States. (B.C./trans.fl)