As the third edition of the ‘No Money For Terror’ Ministerial Conference is beginning from Friday, India on Thursday said confirmation from China is still awaited while Pakistan and Afghanistan are not participating in the international event.
However, a total of 78 countries and multilateral organisations, including Ministers from 20 countries, have confirmed their presence at the two-day conference being organised today and tomorrow here. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will deliver the inaugural address at the third ‘No Money for Terror’ (NMFT) Ministerial Conference today. While addressing a press conference, Dinkar Gupta, Director General, National Investigation Agency (NIA) said, “Pakistan and Afghanistan are not participating in this conference”.
On a query over the presence of China in the international event on terror financing, Secretary West (MEA) Sanjay Verma said “the participation of China is not yet confirmed”. However, Verma clarified “China has been invited”. Replying to another query about whether Pakistan was invited and did not come or it was not invited, Verma said, “China has been invited”.
Giving details of the event in the Curtain Raiser press conference on the third ‘No Money for Terror’ Conference, NIA DG said, “This is the third edition of ‘No money for Terror’ conference. The first was held in France in 2018… Second edition was organised in Melbourne, Australia in 2019.”
Noting “this is a very crucial way to stop terror financing and activities”, the NIA DG said a total 72 countries along with multilateral organisations are participating in the event”.
India will raise major issues like lack of universal consensus on laws regarding cybercrimes; weak control mechanisms of social media platforms and their misuse by terrorist and extremist groups, dark web and crypto-currency in the international ‘No Money For Terror’ Ministerial Conference.
The Conference aims to progress the discussions on combating terrorist financing held by the international community in the previous two Conferences in Paris and Melbourne. It also intends to include discussions on technical, legal, regulatory and cooperation aspects of all facets of terrorism financing. It attempts to also set the pace for other high level official and political deliberations, focused on countering terrorist financing.