January 29, 2020
The Head of CIS ATC Andrey Novikov and CSTO Secretary General Stanislav Zas’ held a working meeting in the Collective Security Treaty Organization’s headquarters on 29 January 2020.
The parties highlighted an importance of information exchange between the organizations under the Memorandum of Cooperation signed in 2011. According to the participants of the meeting, cooperation in this field shall provide for required and sufficient conditions for informational support of the decision taken in fight on terrorism.
The CIS ATC coordinates operation aimed at search of the fugitives wanted for terrorist and extremist offences, the CIS ATC data base contains information on more than 10,000 fugitives, out of them 5,000 are terrorist-fighters who took part in combat actions in the ranks of international terrorist organizations outside of the Commonwealth states, Andrey Novikov said. “We actively cooperate with Interpol, EAG, SCO RATS, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism in 2018”, the Head of CIS ATC added. He also expressed interest in engaging military capacities of the CSTO in anti-terrorism efforts undertaken under the auspices of the CIS ATC. “I believe there is a need in mastering interaction between militaries of the CSTO member-states and special units of the law enforcement and security authorities of the Commonwealth states within the frameworks of our annual CIS drills “Anti-Terror”, Andrey Novikov noted.
Stanislav Zas’ offered a number of ideas on practical interaction in combating terrorism. “We have a Memorandum of Cooperation signed between the CSTO Secretariat and CIS ATC giving us a framework for cooperation. In particular, we are interested in a possibility to engage the CIS ATC representatives in the exercises of the special forces which are part of the SCTO CORF, SCTO Secretary General said.
The parties also discussed an issue of a unified list of organizations designated as terrorist in the CSTO member-states.
Photo courtesy of SCTO press service
