Brussels, 20/01/2014 (Agence Europe) - Michel Reveyrand de Menthon, Special Representative of the European Union (EU) to the Sahel, was in Algeria last week for talks on security in the region. "We welcome the similarities of opinion between the EU and Algeria and the partnership we wish to consolidate even more regarding Sahel and the regional issues of this crisis", he said after a working session with the junior minister for Maghreb and African affairs, Madjid Bouguerra, Algerian media report.
The EU anti-terrorism coordinator, Gilles de Kerchove, who was reported by the same sources also to have attended the meeting, urged a “deepening” the partnership between the EU and Algeria in anti-terrorism matters.
He also spoke to the press about the situation in Syria and, in particular, the recruitment of young Europeans to go and fight in the ranks of the Jihadists, with the risk of their “returning more radical, better trained"” and potentially tasked with committing “attacks in their countries of origin or the neighbouring countries”. The media reported that he stressed the need for “greater cooperation and greater collaboration between Algeria and the EU”. (FB/transl.fl)