India to UN: Terrorism as instrument of state policy not tolerable

India has told the UN that use of terrorism as an instrument of state policy cannot be tolerated as it urged the world body that the war against terror has to be unrelenting and fought across all fronts.

“Use of terrorism as an instrument of State Policy cannot be tolerated. Those who have taken recourse to it have invariably suffered themselves proving the age old dictum that those who play with the sword, shall also perish by it,” Yedla Umasankar, legal adviser and first secretary at the Permanent Mission of India to the UN said.

Addressing a UN committee on “Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism”, Umasankar said that the fight against terrorism has to be unrelenting and fought across all fronts.

“The international community cannot afford selective approaches in dealing with terrorist groups or in dismantling the infrastructure of terrorism. We must step up our collective efforts with real time cooperation among member states to confront the scourge of terrorism squarely and decisively,” the Indian diplomat said.

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India also rued that several resolutions of the UN Security Council asking countries to take action to prevent and suppress terrorist acts and refrain from providing any form of support, to entities or persons involved in terrorist acts, including by suppressing recruitment of members of terrorist groups and eliminating the supply of weapons to terrorists are not be implemented.

India, remains deeply concerned about the issue of financing terrorism, officials said.

India strongly condemned direct or indirect financial assistance given to terrorist groups or individual members thereof by countries or its machineries, to pursue their activities, including in defending the criminal cases involving terrorist acts against them.

“We have been in the forefront of global counter-terrorism efforts and are part of all major global initiatives, including the Financial Action Task Force (FATF),” Umasankar said.

Amidst calls for the draft comprehensive convention to eliminate terrorism to be finalised, he pointed out that even though India had brought a proposal for a comprehensive convention against terrorism before the General Assembly in?1996, the UN had so far been unable to adopt it due to the issues of definition over who was a terrorist.

Narrow geopolitical interests continued to stand in the way of meaningful progress on discussions of that convention, he said.

Chinese delegate Shi Xiaobin insisted that counter-terrorism efforts must strictly comply with international law.

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“In the fight against terrorism, we must uphold the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, respect the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of the countries concerned, and abide by the rules of international law regarding the use of force and crime punishment,” he said.

China urged the General Assembly to accelerate its efforts to conclude and adopt the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism, in order to further improve the international legal framework in this regard.

China, which has been repeatedly blocking India’s effort to designate Mumbai terrorist attack mastermind Hafeez Saeed, he said over the past year, has engaged in consultations and interactions with more than ten countries in the area of counter-terrorism and security.

It has also exchanged views with our interlocutors on issues such as international and regional counter-terrorism situation and bilateral counter-terrorism cooperation.

According to Xiaobin, China played an active part in the establishment of the BRICS Counter-Terrorism Working Group, attended its first meeting, and played host to its second meeting.

“The first China-Russia-India informal meeting on counter-terrorism was held in Beijing,” he said.