LYON, France - Head of the Anti-Terrorism Center of the Commonwealth of Independent States Andrey Novikov met with INTERPOL Secretary General Ronal K. Noble on 25 July 2014 at the INTERPOL’s General Secretariat headquarters.
During the meeting the parties stressed the importance and necessity of continued cooperation between CIS ATC and INTERPOL lasting since 2008 in accordance with the Memorandum of Understanding both within the framework of the existing projects such as Fusion and its component project Kalkan targeting terrorism-related threats in the Central and South Asia, and through joint initiatives aimed at ensuring national and international security.
In addition to their long standing support of Project Kalkan, under Mr Novikov’s leadership the Center has consistently proven to be a strong partner in combating terrorism throughout Central Asia and beyond, and I look forward to our continued close cooperation in the future,” added the INTERPOL Chief, pointing to the creation of a joint INTERPOL-CIS Anti-Terrorism Center working group to address ways for increased information sharing on issues related to cybercrimes and cyberterrorism..
The meeting attendees agreed over the necessity to further develop cooperation in this sphere and concurred that intensified information sharing and mutual participation of the CIS ATC’s and INTERPOL's experts in the related events would largely expand the use of capabilities of both organizations in ensuring regional and global security.
During the visit the Head of CIS ATC also met with INTERPOL’s Executive Director of Police Services Jean-Michel Louboutin and Pierre St Hilaire, Director of INTERPOL’s Counter-Terrorism, Public Safety and Maritime Security unit to discuss issues relating to the CIS ATC’s initiative to compile data on the CIS citizens acting as foreign fighters and participating in the armed conflicts on the side of terrorist and extremist organizations, illegal military groups.
The CIS ATC’s representatives were updated on INTERPOL’s global law enforcement tools and services and the Organization’s latest crime-fighting initiatives, including the Turn Back Crime campaign which seeks to encourage greater public involvement in preventing crime.
The CIS ATC Head Andrey Novikov also noted that cooperation with INTERPOL not just considerably expanded interoperability of the special services and law enforcement agencies of the Commonwealth member-states but gave an additional impulse to further improvement of the international terrorism-preventing tools. In his turn, INTERPOL General Secretary Ronal K. Noble thanked the CIS ATC Head for the contribution made by the CIS ATC into strengthening collective security and stressed that the trust partnership relations between the organizations remained the keystone of successful and efficient work.
