ANKARA - Turkey`s Interior Minister Besir Atalay left for Turkmenistan on Monday.
Atalay will participate in the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) Second Interior Ministers` Meeting in the Turkmen capital of Ashkhabad.
"I will discuss the terrorist organization PKK and al-Qaida with my interlocutors," Atalay told reporters before he flew to Turkmenistan.
Atalay said he would also debate steps to be taken against illegal migration, and told reporters that an Ashkhabad declaration would be released at the end of the meeting.
The ECO is an intergovernmental regional organization established in 1985 by Iran, Pakistan and Turkey to promote economic, technical and cultural cooperation among the member states. It is the successor organization of Regional Cooperation for Development which existed from 1964 up to 1979.
In 1992, the Organization was expanded to include seven new members, namely Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
The 2004 and 2006 summits of the organization focused on security, particularly human trafficking, terrorism, illicit drug trafficking, and money laundering.
In these summits, the member states decided that their interior ministers met periodically. The first interior ministers meeting took place in Iran in 2006.
(BRC)