New Delhi
23 October 2006
A day after officials from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the
United States called on officials in New Delhi, India and Russia on Tuesday will review
the progress of bilateral cooperation in counter-terrorism and devise ways to meet new
challenges posed by international terrorism.
On Monday, CIA Deputy Director (Intelligence) Karmen Medina and National Intelligence
Council's South Asia in-charge Nancy Powell called on Foreign Secretary Shivshankar
Menon. The sharing of evidence of Pakistan's involvement in the July 11 Mumbai train
blasts and the situation in Afghanistan are understood to have come up for discussion.
On Tuesday, a Russian delegation led by Mr Anatoly Safonov, special representative of
the Russian President for international cooperation in the fight against terrorism and
transnational organised crime, will meet with their Indian counterparts for the next round
of the Indo-Russian joint working group on counter-terrorism.
India and Russia decided to set up the joint working group on counter-terrorism in 2002.
The first meeting of the joint working group was held at Moscow in 2003. Tuesday's talks
will be the fourth since its inception.
Official sources said both countries would compare notes on the developments since the
last meeting of the joint working group in January 2005 and exchange experiences in the
fight against terrorism and money laundering.
The joint working group consists of technical experts from different fields who meet
alternately in Delhi and Moscow and exchange views on counter-terrorism, exchange of
intelligence about the terrorist groups, management of terrorism response and building
of strategy in effectively countering the menace of terrorism.
New Delhi maintains co-operation between law enforcing agencies of countries affected
by terrorism is an essential tool for combating international terrorism and an
institutionalised mechanism of joint working groups on counter terrorism will facilitate
the efforts.
No comments:
Post a Comment