DUSHANBE, June 28, 2011, Asia-Plus — Dushanbe is hosting Interpol’s next working group meeting of the Project Kalkan.
Opened at the OSCE Border Management Staff College in Dushanbe today, the meeting formally titled “Terrorism in the Region” has brought together some 30 experts from Central and South Asia’s countries to discuss issues related to combating terrorism and religious extremism.
The previous Interpol’s working group meetings on the Kalkan Project took place in Almaty (Kazakhstan), Baku (Azerbaijan), Tbilisi (Georgia), Tehran (Iran) and Moscow (Russia).
The Dushanbe meeting is reportedly focused on prospects of practical cooperation on issues of combating terrorism and religious extremism in the countries of central Asia and South Asia, including Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Mr. Alain Scolan, the Principal of the OSCE Border Management Staff College (BMSC), pointed out the importance of development of many-sided approach to providing support to the Central Asian and neighboring countries in conducting investigations related to terrorism and religious extremism.
Project Kalkan – meaning Shield in Central Asian countries – is one of several key regional components of Interpol’s multi-region Fusion Task Force (FTF), which was created in 2002 to identify active terrorist groups, and to collect, share and analyze information and intelligence on their activities. From just five initial member countries at the launch of Project Kalkan in 2004, following terrorist attacks in Tashkent, a total of more than 100 Interpol member countries are now sharing terrorism-related information as part of the initiative.
Through FTF Project Kalkan (Central Asia), Amazon (Central and South America), Pacific (Southeast Asia), Nexus (Europe), Middle East and Baobab (Africa), a network of nearly 200 contact officers worldwide has been established, exchanging thousands of messages between each other and with Interpol on suspected terrorists and developing profiles of suspect individuals in the FTF’s terrorist registry.
