China and Southeast Asian countries decided to improve their cooperation in security and anti-terrorism during a meeting in Beijing.

The two sides will take action to improve multilateral and bilateral cooperation against terrorism, said senior Chinese official Meng Jianzhu.

Meng, head of the Commission for Political and Legal Affairs of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, made the remarks while addressing the opening ceremony of the China-Southeast Asian security services counter-terrorism dialogue.

He said China and Southeast Asian nations share close geographical and cultural links as well as common interests and future. The two sides have witnessed increasing mutual trust and cooperation in security.

He thanked Southeast Asian nations for their support to China in the fight against terrorism.

Meng said China is ready to work with Southeast Asian countries to put into action the common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security strategy for Asia, which was proposed by President Xi Jinping at the fourth summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in May 2014.

He also called on all the countries to improve multilateral and bilateral cooperation, increase information exchange, expand cooperation areas, and strengthen counter-terrorism collaborative capacity, so as to establish a multilateral anti-terrorism cooperation platform with regional characteristics to protect people in the region and help maintain regional security and stability.

Officials from Southeast Asian countries agreed with Meng and pledged to further strengthen information exchange and take pragmatic actions in counter-terrorism with China.

China's State Councilor and Public Security Minister Guo Shengkun met with Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sar Kheng, who attended the dialogue.

Guo said China is willing to work with Cambodia to strengthen law enforcement cooperation in such areas as telecommunications fraud, human trafficking and cyber crimes, so as to serve the development of bilateral relations.

Sar Kheng said Cambodia will strengthen cooperation with the ministry and push forward Cambodia-China ties.

(Xinhua News Agency April 7, 2016)