On a visit to Qatar, where the Asian Cup football tournament is taking place, Lebanon's outgoing Minister of the Interior and Municipalities, Bassam Mawlawi, met with several of his Arab counterparts to discuss issues relating mainly to regional security.
Mawlawi met with Jordanian Minister of Interior Mazen Abdallah Hilal Al-Faraya to discuss the regional struggle against drug trafficking, according to reports from the state-run National News Agency (NNA).
The two officials discussed the measures taken by the two countries' security services in their attempts to control the smuggling of narcotics destined for Gulf markets. They agreed to continue these discussions as soon as possible, said the NNA report, without specifying where or when these discussions might take place.
This meeting comes at a time when at least nine civilians, including two children and four women, were killed on Thursday in strikes attributed to Jordan, in southern Syria, near the border with the Hashemite kingdom, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights NGO and a local media outlet.
Mawlawi also met Sheikh Khalifa bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, minister of interior of Qatar, on Wednesday, with whom he discussed security cooperation between the two countries. According to a message from the Qatari Ministry of the Interior, the two officials also attended a graduation ceremony for the Qatari police.