France has vowed to continue to back “more resolutely” India’s on-going efforts at multilateral forums such as the UN Security Council (UNSC) and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to counter the activities of Pakistan-based terror groups and individuals. As part of this fresh strategy, Paris would be working more effectively and closely with New Delhi in pushing the resolutions aimed at blacklisting of terrorists who are actively operating from the territories under the control of Islamabad, top diplomatic sources told The Daily Guardian.
The assurance came from French Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu during his meetings with Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and NSA Ajit Doval, sources added.
India and France will work more closely at the UNSC and other global forums like FATF to ensure that New Delhi’s action aimed at countering terror activities emanating from Pakistan succeeds. “It will be ensured by France and India that no country like China is able to create any hurdle in blacklisting of Pakistan-based terrorists at UNSC. The past several attempts in this direction met with Beijing’s hurdles at the United Nations,” say sources.
During the meeting between French Defence Minister and NSA, the issue of terrorism emanating from Pakistan and Afghanistan figured prominently, sources said. In their meeting in New Delhi this week, French Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu and National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval shared close assessments of major global and regional security issues and held a detailed discussion on close India-France cooperation in combating terrorism.
Worth mentioning here is that France was subjected to one of the deadliest Islamic State (ISIS) attacks on European soil in 2015 when gunmen killed almost 147 people in Paris and its suburbs. Paris has always been making efforts aimed at combatting money laundering and terror financing. France has been quite vocal against the terror groups operating from Pakistan’s soil. The French government has always sought concerted action against terror groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), Hizbul Mujahideen and al-Qaeda.
In different meetings in New Delhi, the French diplomats accompanying the defence minister elaborately discussing the ways to deal with terror threat from Afghanistan and Pakistan, sources told this newspaper. They were of the view that Pakistan must be told to bring the perpetrators of terror attacks in India and elsewhere to justice speedily.
What is important to recall is that Paris also played a key role in the sanctioning of JeM founder Masood Azhar by the Security Council. More close coordination between Paris and New Delhi would be seen in sanctioning the other terrorists as and when the resolutions come up at UNSC, sources said.
Sources said that France and India have agreed to intensify counter-terrorism partnership, expanding the bilateral cooperation on security front. The French minister not only supported India’s stance that terrorism is one of the most serious challenges to global peace and security but also reaffirmed France’s allegiance to persisting as India’s foremost partner in its path towards strategic autonomy, sources said.