DUSHANBE, April 5, 2016, Asia-Plus – A meeting of experts from member nations of the Central Asian Regional Information and Coordination Center for Combating Illicit Trafficking of Narcotic Drugs, Psychotropic Substances and their Precursors (CARICC) has taken place in Almaty, Kazakhstan to discuss preparation of documents for the next meeting of the CARICC Council of National Coordinators.
Khoushnoud Rahmatulloyev, a spokesman for the Drug Control Agency (DCA) under the President of Tajikistan, says Tajikistan was represented by Murtazo Haidarzoda, the deputy chief of Tajikistan’s counternarcotic agency.
The meeting participants reportedly discussed issues tabled to the meeting of the Council of National Coordinators.
Besides, a regular meeting of the Council of National Coordinators has taken place in the CARRIC Office in Almaty, Rahmatulloyev noted. The meeting participants included plenipotentiary representatives of members nations CARICC and regional representative of UNODC for Central Asia.
The national coordinators reportedly seconded candidacy of Suhrob Safarov, the plenipotentiary representative of Tajikistan’s counternarcotic agency, for the position of deputy head of CARICC, Rahmatulloyev said.
The next meeting of the CARICC Council of National Coordinators will take place in Almaty in the third quarter of this year.
A project to establish Central Asian Regional Information and Coordination Center (CARICC) was launched by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) together with the parties to a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on sub-regional drug control cooperation Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan in late 2004 in response to the need to improve inter-agency cooperation between law enforcement agencies at a national, regional and international level to counter the problem of drug trafficking from Afghanistan.
The institutional documents on the establishment of CARICC, developed by the experts of the participating countries and UNODC, were endorsed at the seventh ministerial review meeting of the parties to MoU that took place in Tashkent, Uzbekistan on February 7-8, 2006. Almaty, Kazakhstan was agreed as a location of the Center. The Office of CARICC was officially inaugurated in Almaty on December 9, 2009.
The purpose of the Center is to facilitate information exchange and analysis, and to assist in the coordination of operational activities of the various law enforcement agencies in the region – police, drug control agencies, customs, border guards, security services of the countries involved.
