US counterterrorism official visiting India for working group meeting

The US State Department's counterterrorism official Timothy Betts will be visiting India next week for the US-India Counterterrorism Joint Working Group's annual meeting.

Betts, who is the Department's acting coordinator for counterterrorism, will lead the US delegation at the meeting on December 12-13.

The 19th meeting of the Joint Working Group will "review regional and global terrorist threat assessments, collaborative bilateral and regional counterterrorism programming, and initiatives to strengthen law enforcement and judicial partnerships", the Department said on Thursday.

The group met in Washington in October 2021.

Betts was in Japan on Thursday for trilateral counterterrorism discussions with senior officials from Australia and Japan focusing on "the current terrorism landscape, including persistent threats in the Indo-Pacific", the Department said.

Before going to India, Betts is to stop over in Manila for talks on counterterrorism cooperation and security partnership between the two countries, it added.

(Arul Louis can be contacted at arul.l@ians.in and followed at @arulouis)

--IANS

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