DUSHANBE, December 25, Asia-Plus - A visit of senior officials from the Drug Control Agency (DCA) for Gorno Badakhshan to China’s Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region has resulted in signing of a protocol between GBAO counternarcotics directorate and the public security department of Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region on cooperation in preventing drug-trafficking crimes.  

According to the counternarcotics agency’s headquarter in Dushanbe, the GBAO drug control officials visited Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region from December 18-21.  During their stay in China, Tajik drug control officials held a number of meetings with their colleagues to discuss expansion of cooperation in combating drug trafficking. 

A source at the Tajik counternarcotics agency said that the sides had reached an agreement on establishing cooperation between the DCA and the public security department of the Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region in exchanging operational information, carrying out joint operations to discover drug-smuggling channels and countering activity of organized transnational criminal groupings.  

The sides agreed to hold the next meeting in Khorog, the capital of Gorno Badakhshan, in the second half-year of 2007.