Russian, Kazakh intelligence service chiefs discuss joint action to fight terrorism

Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) director Nikolai Patrushev and Kazakh National Security Committee (KNB) head Nartai Dutbaev met in the Kazakhstan unofficial capital Alma Ata to discuss cooperation in a bid to combat terrorism and extremism. Under review were measures of interaction and adjustment of information exchange in revealing and localizing likely threats to the national security of Kazakhstan and Russia, reports the KNB press-service. Given the continued tensions in the Central Asian region and the extremely unstable situation in Afghanistan, the talks focuced on the timely warning problem and adequate resistance to terrorist and extremist manifestations within the borders of Kazakhstan and Russia as well as on preventing the attempts of smuggling terrorist ringleaders and fighters into the territory of the two countries.

The intelligence service chiefs put special emphasis on the perfection of the mechanism of operations and administrative control on the two countries' frontiers, especially on "transparent" borders with the former Soviet republics, which is to put higher barriers to the illicit trade in drugs, nuclear and radioactive materials and illegal migration. Proposals to conduct specific joint activities to combat terrorism, drug trafficking and the trade in explosives and radioactive materials were considered.

The sides signed a joint protocol to an agreement between Russia's FSB and Kazakhstan's KNB on mutual information supply for search and investigation.