US on Masood Azhar ban: We will use all available resources to designate Jaish chief at UNSC

The United States on Tuesday said that it will utilize all the resources available to ensure Pakistan-based terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar blacklist at the United Nations Security Council or UNSC. Last month, China had blocked the move at UNSC for the fourth time.

“While we strongly prefer that UNSC designations take place through the committee process, the United States and its allies and partners, including those on the UN Security Council, will utilize all available avenues to ensure that the founder and leader of the UN-designated terrorist organization JeM is held accountable by the international community,” a US state department spokesperson told Hindustan Times.

The US spokesperson also confirmed that ‘we circulated a draft UNSC resolution with U.K. and French support’. The state department was responding to China criticizing the United States, France and the United Kingdom for moving a draft to ban Masood Azhar at the UNSC as “not a constructive move” and that it “set a bad example”.

Last week, US, France and Britain moved a draft resolution at the UNSC after what they witness was China’s failure to agree to the designation of Azhar by removing the technical hold, which he had put three weeks ago on proposal moved by the three permanent members before the sanction committee following the Pulwama attack on a CRPF convoy that killed 40 security personnel.

According to HT report, Beijing has said the process should have stayed in the 1267 sanctions committee where progress had been made and that the US was aware of it and yet it “insists on pushing” the UNSC draft resolution.