DHAKA: Saudi Arabia has handed over a check for $100m to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to help finance the UN's centre to combat global terrorism.

The UN chief welcomed the gift at a ceremony in his office and said the recent upsurge in terrorism in a number of countries and regions - most dramatically, the Islamic State group's takeover of a large swath of Syria and Iraq - "underscores the challenge before us."

Saudi Arabia's Ambassador to the United States, Adel al-Jubeir, who presented the check with the Saudi UN ambassador, stressed that "terrorism is a scourge and an evil that affects all of us."

Terrorism knows no religion. It knows no ethnicity. It has no nationality. It has no humanity. It has no compassion. It has no justice.

He said it can only be dealt with if all countries and peoples unite to deal with the threat.

"We believe that the United Nations can play a very strong and very effective role in mobilising the efforts of the world to counter this evil," al-Jubeir said.

"Terrorism knows no religion. It knows no ethnicity. It has no nationality. It has no humanity. It has no compassion. It has no justice," he said.

"It is in violation of every religion in the world, and it is a scourge that must be eliminated through very strong and very robust international measures."

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia called for the establishment of an international centre to combat terrorism almost 10 years ago, and the proposal was adopted by 55 countries at a counter-terrorism conference in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, in 2005.

Source: Al-Jazeera

BDST: 0932 HRS, AUG 14, 2014