●At the First Reading of the Draft Resolution on 8th Review of the Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy of U.N.
India said that the tendency to categorise terrorism on the basis of motivations behind terrorist acts is “dangerous” and asserted that all kinds of terror attacks, whether motivated by Islamophobia, anti-Sikh, anti-Buddhist or anti-Hindu prejudices, are condemnable.
●India’s Permanent Representative to the UN, said the international community needs to stand guard against new terminologies and false priorities that can dilute its focus of combating the scourge of terrorism.
●The tendency of categorisation of terrorism based on the motivations behind terrorist acts is dangerous and goes against the accepted principles that ‘terrorism in all its forms and manifestations should be condemned and there cannot be any justification for any act of terrorism, whatsoever
Underlining that there cannot be good or bad terrorists, she said such an approach “will only take us back to the pre-9/11 era of labelling terrorists as ‘Your Terrorists’ and ‘My Terrorists’ and erase the collective gains the international community has made over the last two decades”.
●Moreover, some of the terminologies such as right or right-wing extremism, or far-right or far-left extremism opens the gate for misuse of these terms by vested interests. We, therefore, need to be wary of providing a variety of classifications, which may militate against the concept of democracy itself,” she said.
●Terror haven: India also asserted that states that provide shelter to terrorists should be called out and held accountable for their deeds, a veiled reference to Pakistan.
●The UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy is a “unique global instrument” to enhance national, regional and international efforts to counter- terrorism. Through its adoption by consensus in 2006, all UN member states agreed for the first time to a common strategic and operational approach to fighting terrorism.
●it is important to protect the secular nature of the Anti Terror strategy. She said India strongly condemns all kinds of terrorist attacks irrespective of religion, belief, culture, race or ethnicity. “We strongly condemn terrorist attacks motivated by Islamophobia, Christianphobia, anti-Semitism, anti-Sikh, anti-Buddhist, anti-Hindu prejudices,” she said.
●UNSC membership: India said expansion in permanent and non-permanent categories of the UN Security Council is “absolutely essential” to ensure that voices of developing countries and unrepresented regions find their due place at the world body’s top organ.
She said the expansion of both categories is the only way to bring the Security Council’s decision-making dynamics in line with contemporary geo-political realities.
