DUSHANBE, November 5, 2012, Asia-Plus – Officers from the Drug Control Agency (DCA) under the President of Tajikistan are participating in a two-day meeting of the Regional Working Group on Precursor Chemicals that has opened n Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan today.
The DCA press center reports the meeting participants are discussing issues related to prevention of illicit precursor trafficking and exchange of information on that subject.
The meeting participants include law enforcement officers from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
The meeting is reportedly organized in line with implementation of decisions made at the meeting of the Regional Working Group on Precursor Chemicals that took place in Tashkent, Uzbekistan on May 1-2, 2012.
The following issues were the main discussion topics at the Tashkent meeting: short-comings of the TARCET Operation; strengths of other precursor control initiative; revision of intelligence handling procedures at the national and regional levels; examination of intelligence sharing mechanisms; and the development of intelligence-led investigations. Participants in the Tashkent meeting agreed that UNODC should establish a framework incorporating national and regional players to assist the development and launch of intelligence-led investigations in the region. This intelligence structure would in turn generate operations, such as TARCET Operation, in the future. Furthermore, countries in the region will establish National Intelligence Working Groups on Precursors (NIWGP) that will be convened on a monthly basis. These groups should involve law enforcement, regulatory and intelligence agencies. UNODC should be invited to attend meetings on a regular basis, subject to information security issues. Regional Intelligence Working Groups on Precursors (RIWGP) will be created involving the eight countries of the Regional Program and will convene on a four-monthly basis. The group should involve the NIWGP chair, CARICC, UNODC and Project Cohesion Task Force Members.
