India consistently prevented efforts to dilute focus on terrorism: Indian envoy at UN

United Nations, July 29

India has consistently kept the spotlight within and outside the UN Security Council on combating terrorism and prevented efforts to "dilute" the focus on the scourge, New Delhi's envoy here said, with the country set to host a signature event relating to the Secretary-General's report on ISIS during the Council's Presidency next month.

India will assume the rotating Presidency of the 15-nation UN Security Council on August 1, the country's first Presidency during its 2021-22 tenure as a non-permanent member of the Security Council. India will again preside over the Council in December next year, the last month of its two-year tenure.

“India has consistently kept the spotlight on combating terrorism, both inside the Council and outside as well," India's Permanent Representative to UN Ambassador TS Tirumurti told PTI in an interview.

"We have not only strengthened the efforts to combat terrorism, especially for example in the financing of terrorism, we have also prevented efforts to dilute the focus on terrorism,” he said.

During its Presidency, India will focus on the themes of maritime security, peacekeeping and counter-terrorism and preside over high-level signature events on these issues.

Tirumurti stressed that in the Security Council, India had highlighted terrorism-related issues and “will also host a signature event during our Presidency in the context of the Secretary-General's report on ISIL/Da'esh”.

The next report of the Secretary-General on the threat posed by ISIS (Da’esh) to international peace and security is expected in the coming days.

Earlier this year, India had said that the Secretary General's report on ISIL should also cover activities of proscribed terrorist entities under ISIL and Al Qaeda Sanctions regime like Lashkar-e-Taiba and other Pakistan-based terror groups like Jaish-e-Mohammad and frontal organisations that raise funds for their activities.

“The world is fully aware that these groups also perpetrate terrorist activities from safe havens in Pakistan, including through violent attacks in Afghanistan that have disrupted the peace process," Tirumurti had said in February during a Security Council briefing when the UN body had considered the 12th report of Secretary-General on the threat posed by ISIL (Da'esh) to international peace and security.

"We are also witnessing the relocation of terror groups to Afghanistan, especially in Kunar and Nangarhar provinces, across the Durand Line. To not name them in this report is doing a disservice as it gives only a partial and a biased view of the situation in the region,” he had said.

Highlighting the role of India in recent months on terrorism-related issues, Tirumurti said that on the Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, India played an extremely active role in the shaping of the final outcome of the strategy.

"We ensured that there was a stronger focus on threats posed by new financing methods and new technologies to support terror. We prevented countries from diluting the global fight against terrorism by dividing terrorists into “your terrorists” and “my terrorists” by introducing several sub-categories of terrorism,” he said. PTI

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