UK: UN resolution against ransom payments to terrorists

Britain submitted a draft resolution to the UN Security Council on Tuesday that calls on countries to prevent the payment of kidnap ransoms to terrorist groups, like al-Qaeda, which have earned hundreds of millions of dollars from such crimes.

British UN Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant said he hoped the 15-member council would be able to adopt the resolution by the end of the month. No new legal obligations would be created, he said, as states were already required not to pay kidnap ransoms under an anti-terrorism resolution adopted in 2001. (Reuters)