Baku hosted the 53rd meeting of the Council of the Heads of Security Agencies and Intelligence Services of the CIS Member-States, State Security Service of Azerbaijan reported.

Colonel General Ali Nagiyev, head of Azerbaijan's State Security Service, Colonel General Orkhan Sultanov, head of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Azerbaijan, and heads of relevant bodies of CIS countries attended the meeting.

The participants of the event first visited the Alley of Honor, where they respectfully honored the memory of the national leader of the Azerbaijani people, architect and builder of the modern independent Azerbaijani state Heydar Aliyev and laid flowers at his tomb.

Then the official opening of the event took place and discussion of the agenda items began. Colonel General Ali Nagiyev, Head of the State Security Service (SSS) of Azerbaijan, who opened the meeting with an introductory speech, noted that in the short time since the last SORB meeting in the Belarusian capital Minsk, a number of radical changes have taken place in the world in terms of security and geopolitics, new conflict hotbeds have emerged in some countries, cases of international terrorism, transnational organized crime, religious extremism, drug trafficking have increased, which significantly complicated the operational conditions in the countries.

He expressed hope that the event will create additional opportunities for exchange of opinions and experience in the above-mentioned directions, for improvement of methods of joint struggle and mechanism of coordinated work of the CIS countries against negative manifestations, create additional opportunities for outlining the contours of future activities, as a result of which the existing bilateral and multilateral cooperation relations will rise to a new stage.

Ali Nagiyev stated that there were important issues to be solved on the agenda of the meeting and expressed hope that important decisions would be made within the framework of the event from the point of view of security of the states and the meeting would be productive in general.

Providing information on the anti-terrorist activities undertaken against the illegal Armenian armed formations operating in Azerbaijan's Karabakh region, which were the main threat to security and stability in Azerbaijan, Nagiyev noted that the lack of intention of these criminal groups to leave Azerbaijani territories despite the trilateral statement of November 10, 2020, their constant mining of residential areas and communications, their continuous shelling of Azerbaijani Army's positions, committing terrorist acts, which resulted in the death of civilians and police officers, made short-term anti-terrorist activities necessary and urgent, and thus Azerbaijan restored its sovereignty.

The meeting continued with speeches and discussions on security issues of the Commonwealth countries, including such issues as destructive activities aimed at destabilization in the CIS space and joint efforts against new challenges.

The meeting concluded with the signing of the final documents.

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