New Delhi
11 December 2009
India and six other South and South-East Asian nations signed a multilateral
convention on cooperation in combating terrorism, organised crime and drug-trafficking
at the Bimstec foreign ministers' meeting in Burma on Friday.
The Bimstec comprises India, Burma, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Thailand and
Nepal.
The pact will provide a legal framework for enforcement agencies of the Bimstec
countries to cooperate and it is expected to add teeth to India's efforts to combat the
insurgent groups operating in the north-eastern states, which share common borders
with some of the Bimstec countries.
"The Convention would send a strong message to the perpetrators of such crimes that
the Bimstec region can no longer be used as a safe haven and the governments and the
people of the region are united in their response to the threat posed by terrorism,
organised crime and drug trafficking," Minister of External Affairs SM Krishna said in his
address to the meeting, a copy of which was made available here by Ministry of External
Affairs.
The Indian Government has approved the signing and ratification of the Bimstec
convention. The convention was adopted in October 2008 at New Delhi by the Bimstec
joint working group on counter-terrorism and transnational crime, which deals with
issues such as intelligence sharing, legal and law enforcement issues, financing of
terrorism, and prevention of trafficking in narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances and
precursor chemicals.
Mr Krishna called on the Burmese Prime Minister General Thein Sein and interacted with
his counterparts from Sri Lanka, Burma, Nepal and other Bimstec countries.
The Bimstec meeting also agreed to include climate change as a key area of
cooperation.
India, which was the chair of Bimstec during the last three years, has formally handed
over the chairmanship of Bimstec to Burma.
An Indian think tank, the Research and Information System for Developing Countries
(RIS) will host a meeting of Bimstec think tanks in February 2010.
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