India-China-Russia trilateral call for joint action on terror outfits, Delhi remains skeptical of Beijing
EAM Sushma Swaraj welcomes Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi & Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to the 15th round of Russia-India-China RIC Trilateral Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in New Delhi. (Source: Twitter/@MEAIndia) EAM Sushma Swaraj welcomes Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi & Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to the 15th round of Russia-India-China RIC Trilateral Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in New Delhi. (Source: Twitter/@MEAIndia)
Even as China continues to block consensus over Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Maulana Masood Azhar at the United Nations Security Council, the India-China-Russia trilateral, for the first time, called for cooperation to take decisive and concerted action against globally-proscribed terrorists and terror entities on Monday.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, however, did not mention Jaish-e-Mohammad in the list of terror groups, although she mentioned Lashkar-e-Taiba, Taliban, Islamic State and al-Qaeda. In her bilateral meeting with Wang Yi on Monday, she stressed the need to meet more frequently and without any agenda to strengthen mutual trust.
While the RIC statement is viewed positively, South Block sources said they do not expect any radical change in China’s behaviour.
“We call for the swift and effective implementation of existing international commitments on countering terrorism, including the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, relevant UN Security Council resolutions and targeted sanctions relating to terrorism and the FATF International Standards worldwide. We agree to strengthen cooperation to take decisive and concerted actions against globally proscribed terrorists and terror entities. We condemn all forms of terrorism and all terrorists, terror entities and organisations listed by the UN Security Council,” said the joint statement issued after the trilateral meeting.
“Foreign Minister Wang Yi and I agreed that we should further strengthen our mutual trust to develop a better understanding between the two parties. And it will be better to meet again, and without agenda, which will help us to expand our mutual understanding,” said Swaraj.
On the RIC discussions, she said, “While discussing terrorism, I put across my view that significant rise in acts of terrorism by terrorist organisations like Taliban, Daesh (Islamic State), al-Qaeda, and LeT directly undermine international peace and security, and endanger ongoing efforts to strengthen the global economy and ensure sustainable growth and development. India strongly recommends a comprehensive policy for dealing with global terrorism.
“The policy should include dealing with extremism, countering religious fanaticism, preventing recruitment of terrorists, disrupting terrorist movements, stopping all sources for financing of terrorism, stopping the flow of FTFs (foreign terrorist fighters), dismantling terrorist infrastructure, and countering terrorist propaganda through the Internet, but we should not limit ourselves to these only.”
In early-November, barely two months after it had agreed to name Jaish-e-Mohammad as one of the terrorist groups at the BRICS declaration, China had “blocked consensus” on the listing of JeM chief Maulana Masood Azhar — for the fourth time since last year — as an internationally designated terrorist under the UN Security Council resolution 1267 committee. This, if successful, would have led to his “assets freeze” and “travel ban”.
In Xiamen in September this year, China had signed off on the BRICS declaration to name JeM and LeT as terrorist outfits, which was welcomed by New Delhi then. In fact, it was a similar formulation to name both JeM and LeT in the Heart of Asia declaration in Amritsar in December 2016, which was agreed to by both China and Pakistan. But, while the Heart of Asia declaration was a ministerial-level statement, the Xiamen declaration was made at the leaders’ level (President/ Prime Minister) and had given some hope in Delhi about a possible change in Beijing’s behaviour.
“We are deeply disappointed that once again, a single country has blocked international consensus on the designation of an acknowledged terrorist and leader of the UN-designated terrorist organisation, Masood Azhar. India strongly believes that double standards and selective approaches will only undermine the international community’s resolve to combat terrorism. We can only hope that there will be a realisation that accommodating with terrorism for narrow objectives is both short-sighted and counter-productive,” the MEA’s official spokesperson Raveesh Kumar had said. China’s move to block Azhar’s listing as a global terrorist is seen by New Delhi as being done at the behest of Pakistan, which has been sheltering the mastermind of the Pathankot terror attack. In fact, the Pathankot terror attack is seen in Delhi as the incident which killed the revived dialogue process, days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s surprise visit to Lahore in December 2015.
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