Strengthening cooperation in many areas but specifically public security was important to China and Russia said Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev in Moscow on Monday at a meeting with visiting Chinese Public Security Minster Zhou Yongkang.

 

Nurgaliyev said interaction between the Russian Interior Ministry and the Chinese Public Security Ministry was being reinforced within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) format. This included the launch of the mechanism for the regional antiterrorist structure of the SCO.

 

Public security cooperation was among the most important issues between the two countries especially with changing international circumstances, Zhou said.

 

According to Nurgaliyev the two ministries were actively working together at border and regional levels, the departments had accumulated considerable experience in fighting organized and economic crime and they conducted joint operations.

 

The two countries were "conducting the development of international legal agreements on combating terrorism, separatism and extremism," he said. Both were also giving attention to cooperation in the training and retraining of personnel.

 

"The Russian Interior Ministry is ready to receive before the end of the current year a delegation from the personnel department of the Chinese Public Security Ministry in order to work out the final version of the draft protocol on the creation of the joint working group on cooperation in this sphere," Nurgaliyev said.

 

At the same time the Russian minister noted the two ministries had been developing partnerships in other areas.  

 

"A group of children of police officers who've been killed or wounded while on duty will go on vacation to China this summer at the invitation of the Chinese Public Security Ministry," Nurgaliyev said. The Russian Interior Ministry for its part was ready to receive the children of officers of the Chinese Public Security Ministry next year, he added.

 

(Xinhua News Agency July 25, 2006)