US Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano yesterday met with Turkish State Minister Hayati Yazici to discuss increasing collaboration between the United States and Turkey to combat terrorism and other transnational crime.

During the meeting, Secretary Napolitano underscored the Obama administration's commitment to working closely with Turkey to strengthen the security of the global supply chain. She also noted Turkey's participation in Project Global Shield-an international initiative launched by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the World Customs Organization (WCO), the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, and Interpol in 2010 to interdict precursor chemicals used in building improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Under Project Global Shield, more than 60 participating countries are currently sharing information with each other to ensure that chemicals entering their countries are being used in safe and legal ways, leading to successful interdictions of a number of suspicious shipments and providing promising investigative leads on the smuggling of precursor chemicals into Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Last month, Secretary Napolitano traveled to Brussels, where she met with top European officials and joined WCO Secretary General Kunio Mikuriya to announce a new partnership between DHS and the WCO to enlist other nations, international bodies and the private sector in strengthening the security of the global supply chain. She also traveled to London to meet with United Kingdom counterparts and International Maritime Organization (IMO) Secretary General Efthimios Mitropoulos to deepen cooperation between the United States and the UK and to discuss ways the IMO could further these global supply chain security efforts.

These initiatives are designed to prevent terrorists from exploiting the global supply chain to plan and execute attacks; protect the most critical elements of the supply chain system, such as transportation hubs and related critical infrastructure, from attacks and disruptions; and build the resilience of the global supply chain to ensure that if something does happen, the supply chain can recover quickly.