YEREVAN, July 24 (Itar-Tass) — Russia’s Interior Ministry and Armenia’s police will exchange experience in reforming the interior agencies, Russian Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev said after a meeting of the two countries’ joint Interior Board on Monday.
“We agreed that we would exchange experience for carrying out reforms of our agencies. Russia and Armenia are carrying out such reforms. Our common goal is to make police highly professional, authoritative.”
“The exchange of experience in this sphere, in my view, will help us avoid mistakes and half-baked decisions,” the Russian interior minister stressed.
He also believes that the Russian Interior Ministry and Armenian police should intensify joint work for combating organised crime.
“It is necessary to consolidate efforts to counter organised crime. Our work in this field is positive. We conducted many operations together,” Kolokoltsev said at the joint Interior Board meeting. In his words, last year alone, Russia’s interior agencies detained 37 persons, who are set up for gang leaders, 26 of which have been convicted. “We also detained 98 leaders of major bandit groups. The operations against some of them, mostly Armenian citizens, were conducted jointly with Armenia. This allowed us to considerably increase the work efficiency,” Kolokoltsev said.
He noted that as a rule, participants in trans-border criminal groups commit fraud, property crimes, people abduction, as well as economic crimes. As a rule they act in major economically developed regions of the Central, North Caucasus and North-Western federal districts. But they try to influence other countries. “Today our common task is to protect the economy from criminal elements. Special attention is riveted to joint investigation measures, it is also necessary to place a special emphasis on the preventive measures,” Kolokoltsev stressed.
Armenia’s police chief Vladimir Gasparyan said for his part that cooperation with the Russian Interior Ministry has been developing successfully.
“No doubt that the agenda of our session (combating organised crime) is important both for the Russian Interior Ministry and Armenia’s police because criminal activities of organised groups and communities increase influence. Thus, we must strengthen cooperation,” he said. Gasparyan stressed that this work should be done in close cooperation. He urged the Russian colleagues to more actively develop cooperation in the exchange of information.
The joint Board meeting participants also agreed that Russian and Armenian policemen will more often communicate directly, and not only through their leadership.
“We agreed that not only the leaders of our agencies, but also concrete units of criminal investigation, economic security and others should interact. Their cooperation is indispensable,” Kolokoltsev told journalists on Monday.
According to him, several meetings between the leadership of the two agencies on criminal investigation, economic security have already been planned.
Kolokoltsev also said that much should be done yet to counter cybercrime.
He said the next joint Board meeting would focus on interaction in fighting crimes in information technology.
“This initiative was backed by the Armenian colleagues and the corresponding units will hold consultations to this effect in the near future and work out concrete mechanisms for cooperation,” the Russian interior minister stressed.
At the same time, Kolokoltsev said there are certain spheres where it would be necessary to step up the activities.
“First of all, this is the joint work on regional organised criminal communities having trans-border relationship. The separate pack of issues is to create an effective law enforcement segment in migration policy,” the Russian minister stressed.
“Integration processes and economic cooperation of our countries should be based on the joint efforts aimed at fighting crime and protecting the interests of our citizens,” Kolokoltsev emphasised.