DUSHANBE, September 19. /ITAR-TASS/. Security services of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member states pool efforts against gunmen coming back from conflict zones.
“This is a real problem and not only for countries which are SCO members,” Federal Security Service First Deputy Director Sergey Smirnov, who heads Russian delegation, said after a meeting of the SCO Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure Council. “This is also a problem of Western countries. They also say about this straightforwardly,” he said.
“These people are coming back (from zones of armed conflicts) already trained, brainwashed, instructed in some concrete ways and, staying in our countries, we already witness this that they continue this activity, fulfil orders from the centers which are created abroad for these purposes,” Smirnov said.
In this regard, he noted that joint work was needed to counter this threat. These are measures which law enforcement agencies in the SCO states will take and the SCO Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure Council will harmonize actions taken by each security service.
“This work is already being done. It is based on bilateral relations. For instance, between Russia and Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan,” Smirnov said.
“We want to work out a mechanism for coordinating these efforts,” he noted. Today, if a country carries out an operation against such people this state is actually squeezing them out of the country and they flee to a neighboring country, he said. “But this work is less effective. If working together we will not give a single chance to these people ‘to work’ either there or here. We will not permit them to act in the SCO states, if actions are coordinated and will be taken during some joint operations,” Smirnov noted.