No justification for terrorism says India
India has asserted that there can be no justification for terrorism, irrespective of grievances or political motives, and urged the international community to unite in eliminating the ideology that fuels it.
Addressing the UN General Assembly after the adoption of the Ninth Review of the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy (GCTS) on Wednesday (July 1), India’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Harish Parvathaneni, said India’s long experience with cross-border terrorism has shaped its uncompromising stand against the menace.
"India has been a victim of cross-border terrorism for decades. Our people have paid the price of terrorism in lives lost, families scarred, and societies shattered. This experience has shaped India’s approach: there can be no justification for terrorism."
"Irrespective of any grievance, political cause or strategic calculation, terrorism in all its forms and manifestations must be condemned unequivocally," he said.
India Rejects Double Standards
Parvathaneni stressed that the international community must reject double standards in counter-terrorism and hold perpetrators, organisers, financiers and sponsors accountable through full cooperation among member states.
"A terrorist is a terrorist!! We must work hand in hand to root out the murderous ideology without finding any grievance to justify terrorism," he said.
India also said counter-terrorism efforts should not be weakened by false equivalences or politicised narratives.
"We must address the conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism, but we must never confuse context with justification. We must uphold human rights and the rule of law, but we must also recognise that the first human right is the right to life, and terrorism is the most direct assault on this human right."
Focus On Terror Financing
India said disrupting terror financing must remain central to global counter-terrorism efforts and called for stronger financial intelligence sharing, stricter implementation of Financial Action Task Force standards and ensuring that no jurisdiction serves as a safe conduit for terror financing.
"The international community must improve financial intelligence sharing, strengthen implementation of Financial Action Task Force standards, and ensure that no jurisdiction remains a safe conduit for terror financing."
Highlighting the growing misuse of emerging technologies by terrorist groups, India described it as "disheartening" that negotiations on the latest GCTS review failed to reach consensus on preventing terrorists from accessing such technologies.
India noted that the review comes 20 years after the adoption of the GCTS, when member states recognised terrorism as a threat that can only be defeated through international cooperation.
Parvathaneni recalled that India had proposed the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT) a decade before the GCTS was adopted in 2006 and said the continued absence of a universally accepted legal framework has weakened collective efforts against terrorism.
He said the convention is necessary to strengthen prosecution and extradition while denying terrorists and their sponsors access to safe havens, funds and arms.
"Nearly three decades of delay have hindered our collective efforts to combat terrorism. The time has come to demonstrate political will to conclude the CCIT," he said.
India Flags Delhi Declaration Omission
Parvathaneni said India has consistently contributed to global counter-terrorism initiatives, including hosting discussions that produced the Delhi Declaration on countering the use of new and emerging technologies for terrorist purposes and the No Money for Terror Conferences.
India criticised the omission of the Delhi Declaration from the GCTS review, saying it "reflects the unfortunate situation of how this Assembly is held hostage to petty bean counting! It is doubly unfortunate when the international community continues to tolerate this behaviour."
India also reiterated that it condemns violence motivated by prejudice against any religion or identity.
"As this is the United Nations, a multilateral forum of universal membership, our lens too should be universal. While we condemn all acts motivated by Islamophobia, Christianphobia and antisemitism, this august body must acknowledge that such phobias extend to other faiths as well," he said.
Warning of the dangers posed by inadequate international cooperation, Parvathaneni said effective action against terrorism requires political will, consistency and objective implementation of sanctions.
"Only if we have the political will to counter it in all its manifestations; Only if there are no double standards; Only if there is no distinction between good or bad terrorists."
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"Only if there is transparency and objectivity in the way sanctions regimes function to secure listings of genuine and evidence-based objective listing proposals; Only if exclusivist frameworks, new terminologies and false priorities are thwarted, could the menace of terrorism be successfully combatted by us together," he said.
