OREANDA-NEWS.   Vladimir Putin held a meeting with the heads of delegations to the 13th meeting of the Conference of Heads of CIS Security and Intelligence Services dedicated to intelligence matters.

VLADIMIR PUTIN: Friends, colleagues,

The meeting you are attending has become a traditional, regular event. There is clearly a need for such contacts because we live in troubled times. Though, when were they not troubled? I believe there were always difficulties. However, in my opinion, we are definitely living in times of change, and these are always marked by special tension.

You are facing huge, very complex tasks dealing with maintaining stability within your countries, combatting drugs and their illegal turnover, combatting trans boundary crime, illegal migration and terrorism, of course. You have to provide timely, full and reliable support for the foreign policy activities of your states and the heads of your states.

It is important for you in your work to proceed from the understanding that you can only be efficient if you combine your efforts. We are facing the same challenges and threats, some of which I have already mentioned. However, there are also specific ones, typical of certain parts of the world. I am referring, for instance, to Afghanistan and the upcoming withdrawal of the international contingent from that country. We all know and keep saying that this will not make the situation in Afghanistan any better or calmer, and we should be prepared for any turn of events, although we will, of course, proceed from the best. We will proceed from the idea that the situation will be controlled by the official authorities and we will do everything to assist in this.

As you may know, Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan are actively moving in the direction of deeper economic integration on the post-Soviet territory. The Eurasian Economic Union will become operable as of January 1, 2015, which will create additional favourable preconditions for joint work in a number of areas, including security in the economy. We expect you to contribute to this joint work of ours.

There are also purely professional matters. We continue helping our friends from the Commonwealth to train employees for the special services and security forces. I would like to assure you that we will continue this work in the future, in line with your needs and requests.

I would like to wish you all success in our joint work both in the course of these meetings and in your main activities to maintain the security of your states.