Interior Minister Kamel Féki and his Austrian counterpart Gerhard Karner agreed on Monday, during a working session held at the headquarters of the Austrian Interior Ministry, to draw up training and capacity-building programs and share expertise in combating irregular migration.

The meeting is part of a working visit by Kamel Féki to Austria on April 14-16, at the invitation of Gerhard Karner, according to a ministry press release.

He was accompanied on this visit by a delegation of senior officials from the Interior Ministry.

The meeting was also an opportunity to underline the solid nature of bilateral cooperation relations and their development, with emphasis on the shared willingness to further step up partnership in fields of mutual interest, notably following the visit to Tunisia by the Austrian Interior Minister last November.

During this visit, the two ministers had signed a bilateral cooperation agreement in the civil protection field and inaugurated the Nefta-Tozeur integrated border security training centre, funded by Austria.

Féki and Karner voiced satisfaction at the level of joint cooperation between the two countries' Ministries of the Interior, underlining their shared willingness to support the various fields of security cooperation., according to the same source.