Wednesday 04 / December / 2024
New York: Concerned over the spread of terrorism, particularly in the regions of Africa and Asia, India on Wednesday said that the threat of terrorism can only be tackled through consistent and unified multilateral action.
Ruchira Kamboj, India's permanent representative to the UN, said that India is committed to eradicating terrorism entirely and will not rest until this goal is achieved. She quoted Prime Minister Narendra Modi's statement, "even a single act of terrorism is one too many, even a single life lost is one too many" and said that in recent years, India has contributed more than USD 2 million to the UN Office of Counter Terrorism in support of its global programmes to counter financing of terrorism as well as stemming terrorists' travels."
Going forward, we also reiterate our support to provide more financial resources to UNOCT from the regular UN budget.
Ruchira Kamboj, while addressing the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism Ambassadorial-level quarterly briefing to member States, said that the threat of terrorism is serious and real and despite best efforts aimed towards transnational cooperation, it continues to spread, particularly in the regions of Africa and Asia.
Emphasizing that the Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy should continue to enjoy the support of all member states, she said, "the current Review Resolution adopted in 2021 is relevant and balanced" and, the upcoming Review should be a technical update of this Resolution, taking into account the activities and achievements of the United Nations and other important fora.
Three, we need to keep divisive narratives at bay. We should accordingly refrain from the classification of terrorism. The usage of terms such as 'right wing' or 'left wing' or 'far right' or 'far left' are fraught with the misuse of them by vested interests.
She also said that thirdly, we need to keep divisive narratives at bay. We should accordingly refrain from the classification of terrorism. The usage of terms such as 'right wing' or 'left wing' or 'far right' or 'far left' are fraught with the misuse of them by vested interests.
While addressing the meeting at the UN Office of Counter Terrorism, she congratulated ambassadors Bob Ray and Tarek Ladeb for their appointment as co-facilitators of the review process.
Kamboj said that these are worrying trends of terrorism and needed urgent reversal.
So that terrorism comes to an end, she laid out a four-point plan.
The Permanent Representative of India to the UN also said, "We should exert our energy on addressing more serious issues such as the growing threat of terror financing, which has been further exacerbated by the use of new and emerging technologies by Terrorists and Terrorist Groups."
India has hosted the 3rd "No Money for Terror" Conference in November 2022, and has offered to host the Permanent Secretariat for the Conference in Delhi, as one of the concrete outcomes of that event.
In October 2022, India had hosted the Special meeting of the Counter Terrorism Committee, which had adopted the Delhi Declaration on countering the use of new and emerging technologies, highlighting not only the threat, but paving the way for a futuristic road-map for the CTC to help member states address this threat holistically.
Pointing to the fourth aspect, she said, "It is important to protect the secular nature of the strategy. India strongly condemns all kinds of terrorist attacks irrespective of religion, belief, culture, race or ethnicity. In the same vein, we also condemn terrorist attacks motivated by Islamophobia, Christianphobia, Anti-Semitism, Anti-Sikh, Anti-Buddhist, Anti-Hindu prejudices."
The 7th Review took into account the first three kinds of attacks while failing to address the rest. A more sagacious approach would be to keep this reference broad, abandoning thereby a list-based approach in the upcoming Review.
