KARACHI: (APP) China, Pakistan have reached on consensus to cooperate for safeguarding China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a senior Chinese official said after his recent visit to Islamabad.
Cheng Guoping, Chinese State Commissioner for Counter-terrorism and Security Matters, revealed this in an interview also carried by official newsportal www.china.org.cn here Monday.
A Chinese delegation led by him paid a visit to Pakistan last month, during which leaders of the two countries exchanged views on strengthening security cooperation, particularly in safeguarding the building of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, and reached a new consensus in this regard, Cheng said.
He gave the exclusive interview to guanhaijieju – the WeChat account of Legal Evening News – on the sideline of the annual session of the CPPCC in Beijing.
China has two state commissioners for counter-terrorism and security matters – Cheng and Zhang Xinfeng, former vice minister of public security.
Such state commissioners focus on anti-terrorism diplomacy and play a special role in strengthening coordination between domestic departments, particularly between the central government and local ones, Cheng said.
Extremist terrorist groups are shifting their main targets from the Middle East – where they have suffered heavy losses – to other parts of the world, he said.
“The anti-terrorism situation in the surrounding regions of China is controllable as a whole, but it tends to be severe and complicated,” he said. “It has a direct relationship with the overall situation of international anti-terrorism efforts.”
As progress has been seen in the anti-terrorist fight in Syria and Iraq, international terrorism is entering a new phase, in which extremist and terrorist groups are tweaking their strategies, Cheng warned.
“An increasing number of terrorists are penetrating and gathering momentum in Southeast Asia, Central Asia and South Asia, and the security situation in Afghanistan is particularly alarming,” he said.
Cheng said that since the beginning of this year, the border areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan have been hit by frequent terrorist attacks targeting both civilians and officials, resulting in heavy casualties.