India and ASEAN have strongly condemned terrorism in all its forms and emphasised the need to strengthen global cooperation to combat the menace in a comprehensive manner. The issue figured prominently at the ninth ASEAN-India Senior Officials Meeting on Transnational Crimes (SOMTC) that took place virtually on Wednesday.
“Both sides strongly condemned terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and emphasised the need to strengthen international cooperation to combat terrorism and transnational crimes in a comprehensive and sustained manner,” the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said. It said the two sides discussed ways to enhance cooperation to combat terrorism, illicit drug trafficking and cybercrime under the framework of the ASEAN-India work plan to combat transnational crimes.
“Institutional linkages and capacity building programmes between the two sides were also discussed,” the MEA said in a statement. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is considered one of the most influential groupings in the region, and India and several other countries including the US, China, Japan and Australia are its dialogue partners.
The ASEAN-India dialogue relations started with the establishment of sectoral partnership in 1992 which graduated to full dialogue partnership in December 1995 and summit-level partnership in 2002. The ties were elevated to a strategic partnership in 2012.
ASEAN is central to India’s Act East Policy and its vision for the wider Indo-Pacific. ASEAN comprises Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Brunei, the Philippines, Singapore, Cambodia, Malaysia and Myanmar.
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