United Nations: External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said on Thursday that the “contemporary epicentre of terrorism remains very much alive and active” and bemoaned the fact that evidence-based proposals on terrorism are put on hold without providing a sufficient justification. He was subtly criticising Pakistan and its ally China.
Presiding over the ‘UNSC Briefing: Global Counterterrorism Approach: Challenges and Way Forward’, Jaishankar said terrorism is an existential threat to international peace and security and that it knows no borders, nationality, or race.
“The threat of terrorism has actually become even more serious. We have seen the expansion of Al-Qaida, Da’esh, Boko Haram and Al Shabab and their affiliates,” he said in his address to the 15-nation United Nations Security Council.
Further highlighting the challenges being faced by the counter-terrorism architecture, Jaishankar stressed the need of addressing double standards in countering terrorism, leading to concerns of politicisation.
Jaishankar arrived in New York on Tuesday to preside over two signature events on counter-terrorism and reformed multilateralism being held under India’s current Presidency of the UN Security Council before the curtains come down this month on the country’s two-year tenure as an elected member of the powerful 15-nation Council.
On December 1, India assumed the monthly rotating Presidency of the Security Council, the second time after August 2021 that India is presiding over the Council during its two-year tenure as an elected UNSC member. Agencies