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Foreign ministers’ meet: India, Russia, China condemn terrorism, call for stronger ties
India is hosting the 15th Russia-India-China Foreign Minister-level trilateral meet.
India, China and Russia on Monday called for stronger partnerships and concerted actions by the world community to counter all forms of terrorism and to disrupt terror financing, supply of arms and spread of terrorist ideology.
A joint communiqué issued after the 15th meeting of the foreign ministers of Russia-India-China (RIC) also called for those “committing, organising, inciting or supporting terrorist acts” to be held accountable and brought to justice under international law, including the principle of “extradite or prosecute”.
Though India flagged its concerns about Pakistan-based terror groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, they were not named in the communiqué, which also did not single out any country for backing terror activities.
“I put across my view that significant rise in acts of terrorism by terrorist organisations like Taliban, Daesh (Islamic State), al-Qaeda, and Lashkar-e-Taiba directly undermine international peace and security and endanger ongoing efforts to strengthen the global economy and ensure sustainable growth,” external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj said at a joint press interaction with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi
Swaraj also called for a “comprehensive policy for dealing with global terrorism” that includes dealing with extremism, countering religious fanaticism, preventing recruitment, disrupting terrorist movements, stopping terror financing and the flow of foreign terrorist fighters, and countering terrorist propaganda through the internet.
The communiqué said the three countries were committed to “step up cooperation to prevent and counter” terrorism, radicalisation, terrorist ideology and terror financing. It said they would work together at multilateral forums such as the Financial Action Task force to choke funding for terrorists.
“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,” it added.
The communiqué made it clear the trilateral cooperation “was not directed against any other country”.
Referring to the situation in Afghanistan, the three countries backed an “Afghan-led, Afghan-owned national peace and reconciliation” and the building of a peaceful, united, democratic, stable and pluralistic state.
They said the key to stabilising Afghanistan is “capable and effective Afghan National Defence and Security Forces”. They also called for result-oriented global efforts to counter the Afghan drug threat because of a significant increase of opium poppy production and the nexus between narcotics revenue and terror financing.
The communiqué said a “comprehensive, just and lasting” settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the basis of UN Resolutions, the Arab peace initiative and previous agreements aimed at creating an independent and territorially contiguous Palestinian state living side by side with Israel is needed to achieve peace and stability in the Middle East.
