New Delhi

The Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure (RATS) of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization on Friday has agreed to take joint measures by member states to counter threats posed hy intrernational terrorist groups operating from Afghanistan.

Sources said, “ Joint measures of the competent authorities of member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to counter the challenges of threats posed by international terrorist organizations from the territory of Afghanistan, were approved.’’

According to sources, the decision was taken at the 38^th meeting of RATS SCO held here. Chaired by India, the meeting was attended by delegations of the competent authorities of India, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyz Republic, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and the Executive Committee of RATS SCO.

The Council of the Regional Anti Terrorist Structure of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization will conduct a joint border operation with forces of the border services of the competent of the SCO member states. The operation has been named ‘Solidarity-2023’

An agreement was reached to hold the next meeting of the SCO RATS Council in Tashkent in March 2023.

India assumed the chairmanship of RATS SCO on October 28 for a period of one year. India has shown keen interest in deepening its security-related cooperation with the SCO and its Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure which deals with issues related to security and defence.

The chairmanship in the SCO RATS Council passed from India to Kazakhstan.

The Agreement on the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure as a permanent SCO body was signed during a meeting of the Council of Heads of SCO Member States on June 7, 2002, in St. Petersburg. Since its establishment, the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (RATS) has made a significant contribution to the development of the Organization and became its pillar and a coordinating center for combating terrorism, separatism and extremism at the regional and global levels.

Sources said that the meeting yielded meaningful results as it considered the course of execution of previous decisions of the RATS SCO Council. Apart from this, activities of the group of technical experts of the competent authorities of the SCO member states, expert groups in the area of border cooperation and countering the use of the Internet for terrorist, extremist and separatist purposes, were approved.

Sources said that decisions were also made on organizational and staffing support for the activities of the Executive Committee of the RATS SCO.  “ For personal contribution to the development of the activities of the SCO RATS and strengthening interaction between the competent authorities of the SCO member states, a number of employees of the competent authorities of the SCO member states and officials of the Executive Committee of the SCO RATS were awarded the Diploma of the Council and the RATS SCO Commemorative Badge.