November 29, 2002	Friday	Ramazan 23, 1423

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ISLAMABAD, Nov 28: A high-level official delegation will be leaving shortly for Moscow to attend the inaugural meeting of the recently established Pakistan-Russia joint working group on counter-terrorism, sources told Dawn on Thursday.

The two-day meeting of the joint working group (JWG) on counter-terrorism would begin in Moscow on Dec 2.

The team would be led by Additional Foreign Secretary Aneesuddin Ahmed and would include other senior officials, one of them from the interior ministry.

It was the first such alliance ever forged by Pakistan. Russia, on the other hand, had established similar joint working groups with China, India, the US and the UK.

In the first session the two sides would evolve a framework of the JWG and form sub-committees. Internal security, narcotics, information and intelligence sharing issues would be discussed, officials said.

“The group will discuss bilateral relations and ways and means of cooperating in the context of the region,” said a government official.

The counter-terrorism group would represent a significant development in Pakistan-Russia relations.

Analysts said that it was an important development from Pakistan’s standpoint as it established that Russia considered Pakistan a key player in the regional and global context. In essence, one of India’s closest allies would cooperate with Pakistan in fighting global terrorism, they point out.

“It will take the wind out of the sails of Indian propaganda against us,” said one Islamabad-based foreign policy expert, pointing to New Delhi’s tirade of the so-called cross-border terrorism against Pakistan.

The sources said that the formal proposal to form the joint working group on counter-terrorism came from Russia in December last, and it took almost nine months for it to be formalized. The counter-terrorism group would meet alternately in Moscow and Islamabad at least once a year or whenever needed, officials said.