Pakistan, Russia express concern over ISIS threat in counter-terrorism talks

ISLAMABAD, March 21 (Xinhua) -- Senior Pakistani and Russian counter-terrorism officials on Wednesday expressed grave concern over the rising threat posed by the Islamic State group, officials said.

The Pakistan-Russia Joint Working Group (JWG) on Counter-Terrorism held in Islamabad discussed a wide-ranging agenda covering the counter-terrorism situation at the regional and global level, actions taken by both countries to tackle the menace of terrorism as well as bilateral cooperation on the issue.

The two sides reaffirmed the commitment for promoting bilateral cooperation for countering terrorism and agreed to cooperate at the United Nations and other international fora for combating terrorism, the foreign ministry said in a statement.

"There was broad agreement on the fact that terrorism was a common global threat which required cooperative efforts of the international community for effectively eradicating it," the statement said.

"While major successes had been achieved in the fight against Daesh (Islamic State) in Syria and Iraq, the returning Daesh fighters from the conflict zones to countries of origin or third countries constituted a major security threat to various parts of the world, including this region. It was important for countries of the region to cooperate to counter this threat," the statement said.

The Pakistani side was led by Foreign Ministry Counter-Terrorism Director General Ahmad Farooq, while the Russian side was led by Director of the Department for New Challenges of the Russian Foreign Ministry Ilya Rogachev. Both delegations included officials from relevant departments dealing with counter-terrorism.

The Pakistani side briefed the Russian delegation about the major successes it had achieved in the fight against terrorism through kinetic actions as well as implementation of the major anti-terrorism strategy known as National Action Plan on counter-terrorism, the statement said, adding the plan had resulted in significant improvement of Pakistan's security situation.

The Russian side highly appreciated Pakistan's contribution to the global fight against terrorism.

It was agreed that the next meeting of the JWG would be held in Moscow in 2019. Enditem