India-Kyrgyz pacts to boost trade, terror fight

New Delhi: India and Kyrgyzstan on Tuesday firmed up broad contours of a bilateral investment agreement and inked six other pacts covering a range of areas even as they resolved to work closely to combat the challenge of terrorism, extremism and radicalism.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev also decided to strengthen ties in areas of defence, security, mining, IT, agriculture and energy.

“We discussed how we could work together to secure our youth and society against common challenges of terrorism, extremism, and radicalism. We agreed on the need to coordinate and work closely in addressing and overcoming these challenges for our common benefit,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a media statement.

During the deliberations, the two leaders reviewed the “cooperative engagement” in defence with Modi calling the Kyrgyz-India Mountain Bio-Medical Research Centre as an excellent example of successful collaboration.

Mr Modi said work on a Kyrgyz-India joint military training centre in Kyrgyztan has commenced. Besides joint military exercises, the two countries have been cooperating on high-mountain biomedical research to know impact on soldiers when they carry out operations at high altitude.

Aiming to broaden economic engagement, the two sides initialed a bilateral investment agreement. The six MoUs will provide for deeper cooperation in areas of agriculture, tourism, culture, broadcasting and youth affairs.

A joint statement said the two leaders noted the challenges posed by terrorism and extremism globally as well as in the Asian continent, and emphasised the importance of ensuring a stable and secure environment for peaceful economic development. “In this context, they also called for the adoption by the UN of draft Comprehensive Convention on Combating International Terrorism,” it said.