Introduction

The Conference touched on many and varied aspects of the general topic of politically-motivated attacks on or violence toward diplomatic premises and personnel. The protection of diplomats merits special attention because diplomats are especially vulnerable symbolic targets of political violence and because diplomatic communication plays such a vital role in settling hostage incidents as well as in all other major happenings in our unstable world. The security of embassies and of diplomatic personnel should be further enhanced, possibly by the extension of technical and of other assistance to host countries by sending countries in the area of physical protection. This could be achieved in part by the yet further enhancement of intelligence gathering capabilities and the secure sharing of intelligence and general information. Policies on matters as negotiating techniques with terrorists and other technical aspects of protection, such as intelligence collection and exchanges, should be the subject of more frequent cooperative international interchange.