OSCE Border Management Staff College partners with Interpol in fight against terrorism

The OSCE Border Management Staff College (BMSC) hosted the sixth meeting of the Operational Working Group of the Interpol-led project KALKAN in Dushanbe from 28 to 29 June 2011.

KALKAN is an international operational platform for the fight against terrorism in Central and South Asian and neighbouring countries. The meeting was co-organized by the Interpol‘s General Secretariat and the OSCE BMSC.

Thirty-two high-level counter-terrorism and intelligence experts representing 13 countries - Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan and Turkey - participated in the meeting. They presented and discussed major ongoing operational cases in their countries and in the region. 

“The meeting is held as part of our co-operation with Interpol, which is affiliated with the BMSC’s academic advisory board,” said BMSC Principal Alain Scolan. “The OSCE through its Action against Terrorism Unit has always been a strong supporter of the KALKAN project, which works for the benefit of Central and South Asian countries, including Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

The OSCE is the sole organization which has regularly been invited to participate in the project’s operational workshops. The OSCE refers to INTERPOL tools in its relevant training activities and encourages the OSCE participating States to include them in their counter-terrorism investigations, in particular with regard to stolen and lost travel documents, Scolan added.

An Afghan participant of the meeting emphasized the importance of the BMSC’s work, saying that important seizures of ammonium nitrate were performed by Afghan police officers who had been trained at the BMSC and participated in operations under the KALKAN project.

The BMSC hosted the meeting as part of its continuing activities in the field of border security and management.