In Dushanbe, on the sidelines of the high-level international conference on combating international terrorism and extremism, the SCO Secretary General Rashid Alimov held a meeting with high-level representatives of the UN system—Deputy Secretary General of the UN, the head of Counter-Terrorism Administration Vladimir Voronkov, Executive Director of the Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate (CTED) of the Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC) of the UN Security Council Michelle Coninx and the Special representative of the UN Secretary General, Head of the UN Regional Centre for preventive diplomacy for Central Asia (UNPDCA) Natalia German.

During the meeting, the interlocutors held a deep and thorough exchange of views on the status and prospects of cooperation between the SCO and the UN in the anti-terrorist direction.

The SCO Secretary General noted that interaction with the UN is a priority for the SCO, emphasizing the Organization's intention to deepen the dialogue in order to solve practical problems on countering international terrorism and extremism, continuous regional economic and cultural-humanitarian development.

"Having become traditional, the joint efforts of the UN and the SCO on countering new challenges and threats, combating terrorism and extremism, illicit drug trafficking, the growing cooperation of the SCO Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) with the UN Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee have become an important practical contribution to the development of international cooperation. The SCO welcomes the creation and expansion of the activity of a new unit of the global organization—the UN Office for Counter-Terrorism, which has been closely contacted and a program of joint actions has been outlined," said Rashid Alimov.

During the meeting, the parties defined the outlines of cooperation for 2018, in particular, holding joint events "on the sidelines" of the UN General Assembly during its 73rd session.

Source: rus.sectsco.org