Home Minister to attend SAARC meet in Kathmandu

, Sept 17: Union Home Minister

will leave for Kathmandu on Thursday to attend the sixth meeting of

Home Ministers to be held on Friday. During the meeting, the Home Minister is expected to flag issues like cross-border terrorism and dismantling of terror infrastructure operating from some SAARC nations.

Issues like suppression of terrorism, maritime security, piracy, narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances, combating corruption, cyber crimes will be discussed threadbare at the ministerial-level and official-level meetings of the law enforcement authorities of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries.

Other issues to be discussed at the conference, include mutual assistance in criminal matters, trafficking in women and children and promotion of child welfare in South Asia, an official release said. The Home Minister will call on Nepal President Ram Baran Yadav, Prime Minister Sushil Koirala and Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister Bamdev Gautam and the leaders of Nepali Congress. Singh will also meet the leaders of other political parties in Nepal.

Before the ministerial-level meeting, immigration authorities of all SAARC nations is meeting today and Secretaries of Interior/Home will meet tomorrow. The fifth meeting of the SAARC Interior/Home Ministers was held at the Maldives in September 2012. There have been reports that Pakistan Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan will not attend the meeting and the country would be represented by Interior Secretary Shahid Khan.

PTI