Riyadh — The Terrorist Financing Targeting Center (TFTC), which was announced during the GCC-US Summit here on Sunday, is a collaborative approach to confronting new and evolving threats arising from terrorist financing. Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Naif, deputy premier and minister of interior, and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson exchanged the MoU at the US-GCC leaders summit. The TFTC represents a new and creative response that leverages existing tools and formalizes cooperation between the United States, Saudi Arabia and partners in the Gulf to counter terrorist financing. "This new Terrorist Financing Targeting Center will enhance existing tools and cooperation with partners in the Gulf to forcefully address evolving threats," said Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin. "Treasury will offer the vast expertise of our Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence to this creative new effort. We will co-chair the TFTC with Saudi Arabia, and will work collaboratively with the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to counter these global terror networks." This collaboration will also address a host of other transnational threats emanating throughout the Middle East, including from Iran, the Assad regime, and the situation in Yemen. The TFTC's goals are to identify, track, and share information regarding terrorist financial networks; coordinate joint disruptive actions, and; offer support to countries in the region that need assistance building capacity to counter terrorist finance threats. Participants to the TFTC intend initially to work together to increase information sharing and coordinate sanctions and other disruptive actions against terrorist finance networks, with the goals of coordinating action against the highest-level threats and increasing joint actions as quickly as possible, with a longer term goal of co-locating experts in Riyadh. The Participants intend that the TFTC build upon their capacity and the capacity of regional countries to counter the financing of terrorism through regional workshops and other events focused on improving collective capabilities to combat terrorist finance.
