Russia, Kyrgyzstan to take steps to combat terrorism - Lavrov

MOSCOW, April 4. /TASS/. Russia and Kyrgyzstan will take steps to counter terrorist threats through their Foreign Ministries, intelligence and security agencies, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday following talks with his Kyrgyz counterpart, Erlan Abdyldaev. "We once again expressed our gratitude to our friends for the solidarity shown in connection with yesterday’s terrorist attack in St. Petersburg," Lavrov said. "We discussed steps that will be taken by our Foreign Ministries, the two countries’ security agencies and intelligence services both in the bilateral format and in the context of cooperation within the CSTO and the CIS. We are confident that they (these steps) will make it possible for us to build up our joint actions to thwart terrorist activities more effectively." For his part, Abdyldaev called the terror attack in St. Petersburg "barbaric and inhuman." "We have outlined a number of bilateral and multilateral activities by our Foreign Ministries and relevant agencies to counter this evil," he emphasized. An unidentified device went off at on Monday afternoon in a subway train car when the train was travelling from Tekhnologichesky Institut station to Sennaya Ploshchad station. The Russian Investigative Committee is treating the blast as a terrorist attack, but other versions are looked into as well. Russian Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova told reporters earlier in the day that the death toll in the St. Petersburg metro blast had climbed to 14, while 49 people remain in hospitals. Read more