Saarc nations agree to strengthen efforts against terror

The south Asian countries on Friday agreed to operationalise the Saarc Terrorist Offences and Drugs Offences Monitoring Desks (STOMD) and the Saarc Drugs Offences Monitoring Desk (SDOMD) so as to strengthen efforts against terrorism, an official release said.

During the two-day meeting held here from September 22 to discuss anti-terror mechanism, representatives of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) countries discussed the issues of terrorism, trafficking and cyber crimes, the release said.

"There were discussions on finetuning the Saarc anti-terrorism mechanism by improving and sharing regional monitoring systems, real-time exchange of information, capacity building through training of human resource and early ratification of the relevant SAARC conventions," it added.

The member-countries also endorsed the importance of regional cooperation in effectively tackling terror.

"They shared their experiences on various legislations to counter terrorism," the release said.

Other issues like corruption and money laundering were also brought up for discussions, the release added.

The meeting was chaired by Intelligence Bureau Director Dineshwar Sharma.

--IANS

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