India wants to further strengthen ties with US on joint fight against narcotics: MEA

.

The operational cooperation between India and the US in the area of counter-narcotics has "surged" in the last several years, and New Delhi wants to further strengthen the joint fight against narcotics, the MEA said on Wednesday.

At his weekly media briefing, external affairs ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal, in response to a query, said joint operations have been conducted which have dismantled major trans-national networks.

The MEA spokesperson said the fight against narcotics was a "very good" area of cooperation, which could see further strengthening in the future.

The cooperation has been given a further push with the launch of the India-US Counternarcotics Working Group in 2020.

And, the fifth meeting of the happened last year in October, where both sides adopted several measures to strengthen their fight against common challenges, Jaiswal said. The preparation for the sixth meeting is underway, he said.

"We have a strong mechanism of sharing information between the US and India, and these have resulted in key seizures and arrests," the MEA spokesperson added.

India has a "very strong collaboration, and not just strong collaboration, institutional collaboration with the United States, and these are based on long-standing agreements that we have between the two countries," he said.

And, operational cooperation between the two countries has "surged in the last several years, with significant two-way interdictions, and coordinated enforcement".