PM Kamla: Talks focused on regional security

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar met Chair­man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre for talks fo­cused on re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty and con­tin­ued co­op­er­a­tion be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Unit­ed States.

Ac­cord­ing to a state­ment is­sued af­ter the meet­ing, Per­sad-Bisses­sar out­lined her Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion on mat­ters re­lat­ed to nar­co-traf­fick­ing, hu­man traf­fick­ing and transna­tion­al crime. She stat­ed that Trinidad and To­ba­go re­mains com­mit­ted to work­ing with the Unit­ed States to ad­dress these is­sues in the in­ter­est of cit­i­zens and the wider re­gion.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar not­ed the long-stand­ing ties be­tween both coun­tries and said the re­la­tion­ship has been shaped through on­go­ing diplo­mat­ic en­gage­ment. She added that the part­ner­ship now plays a role in ef­forts to pro­tect the re­gion through co­or­di­nat­ed se­cu­ri­ty ini­tia­tives and in­for­ma­tion shar­ing.

The re­lease said mem­bers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go del­e­ga­tion wel­comed com­ments from Gen. Caine, who ac­knowl­edged the role the coun­try con­tin­ues to play in re­gion­al dis­cus­sions on se­cu­ri­ty and law en­force­ment. He al­so recog­nised the work of lo­cal agen­cies in­volved in joint op­er­a­tions with US coun­ter­parts.

The meet­ing formed part of con­tin­u­ing con­tact be­tween the two Gov­ern­ments as they ad­dress crime net­works and move­ments linked to the Caribbean. Dis­cus­sions al­so in­clud­ed fu­ture ar­eas for co­op­er­a­tion and plans for fol­low-up en­gage­ment be­tween teams from both sides.

The state­ment said Trinidad and To­ba­go will main­tain di­a­logue with the Unit­ed States as both coun­tries look to sup­port re­gion­al bod­ies and agen­cies in­volved in se­cu­ri­ty mat­ters.