India, China and Russia reaffirms strong opposition to terrorism

Reaffirming strong opposition to terrorism, India, Russia and China on Wednesday said that extremist groups cannot be supported and used in political and geopolitical goals and those backing terrorist acts must be held accountable and brought to justice.

In a joint communique of the 16th Meeting of the Foreign Ministers of Russia India and China (RIC), the three nations strongly condemned terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.

The strong wording of the communique came amid heightened tensions between India and Pakistan after the February 14 Pulwama attack after which India targeted terror terrorist camps in Pakistan.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj along with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov called on the international community to strengthen UN-led global counter-terrorism cooperation by fully implementing the relevant UN Security Council (UNSC) resolutions.

It said the the Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy should be in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and the principles of international law while respecting sovereignty and independence of all states, and expeditiously finalising and adopting the UN Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism at the earliest.

"They reiterated that states and their competent agencies play a central role in both national and international counter-terrorism efforts. They also stressed that terrorist groups cannot be supported and used in political and geopolitical goals," the communique said.

Those committing, orchestrating, inciting or supporting terrorist acts must be held accountable and brought to justice in accordance with existing international commitments on countering terrorism, it said.

The ministers stressed that those committing, orchestrating, inciting or supporting terrorist acts must be held accountable and brought to justice in accordance with existing international commitments on countering terrorism, including the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, relevant UN Security Council resolutions and the Financial Action Task Force standards.

The ministers called for enhanced coordination to fight against all terrorist organisations in Syria including those listed by the UNSC.

They stressed the urgent need for socio-economic reconstruction in Syria and called upon the international community to provide necessary assistance in that regard in de-politicised and non-discriminatory manner, contributing, inter alia, to the return of Syrian refugees, it said.

-PTI