国内英语新闻:China, Indonesia hold meeting on anti-drug cooperation

JAKARTA, Oct. 24 (Xinhua) -- Officials of Chinese and Indonesian anti-drug agencies held their first official bilateral meeting here on Tuesday to implement a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on anti-drug cooperation signed by the two governments in 2012.

The initial meeting in Jakarta that gathered senior officials from China's National Narcotics Control Commission (NNCC) and Indonesia's National Narcotics Agency (BNN) served as the cornerstone for the following meetings to be held annually in the two countries.

Speaking on the sidelines of the meeting, Head of the NNCC delegation Wei Xiaojun said the meeting has formulated mechanisms for the following meetings, including the appointment of direct contact persons of the respective agencies related to bilateral anti-drug cooperation.

"The meeting serves as the concrete way to specify contents of our bilateral drug control cooperation in the future," Wei said.

Wei added that the meeting would further specify the guidelines of bilateral cooperation in the sector.

A document containing matters approved by the NNCC and BNN delegations during the meeting was signed by Wei Xiaojun and head of the Indonesian delegation Arief Wicaksono Sudiutomo.

Arief said besides mechanism and direct contacts in the two agencies, the two delegations also identified ways to expand the bilateral cooperation in drug control, among others, by capacity building and extending the cooperation in the ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) level.

"We may invite NNCC to take part in ASEAN Airport Interdiction Task Force (AAITF) activities," Arief said on the sidelines of the document signing, referring to the ASEAN organization, which is tasked to tackle illicit drug distribution through commercial flights in the region.

Arief said the BNN and NNCC have previously established intensive cooperation through intelligence information exchanges that resulted in fruitful drug crackdown operations in Indonesia.