India, 5 Central Asian nations agree on joint fight against terrorism

Samarkand (Uzbekistan), January 13

India and five Central Asian countries along with Afghanistan on Sunday condemned terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and agreed to cooperate in countering the menace that poses a threat to people across the world.

This was part of a joint statement issued at the end of the first-ever meeting of the India-Central Asia Dialogue that also saw the participation of Afghanistan at the ministerial level in Samarkand. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj along with the foreign ministers of Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan took part in the meeting.

“All sides condemned terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and agreed to cooperate in countering terrorism, which posed a threat to the people and economies of the world,” the statement said.

It referred to the ancient civilisational, cultural, trade and people-to-people links between India and central Asia and expressed commitment to dynamic and fruitful friendly relations and mutually beneficial cooperation between India and the central Asian countries at bilateral and multilateral formats. — PTI