Indian delegation at UN presents case for declaring TRF a te
Indian delegation at UN presents case for declaring TRF a terrorist organisation
A delegation from India met with the top UN counter-terrorism officials on Wednesday for a wide-ranging discussion on cooperation in fighting terrorism
UNITED NATIONS — A delegation from India met with the top UN counter-terrorism
officials on Wednesday for a wide-ranging discussion on cooperation in fighting
terrorism in the aftermath of the Pahalgam terrorist attack by The Resistance
Front.
During their discussions with the Indian delegation,
Under-Secretary-General Vladimir Voronkov of the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism
(UNOCT) and Assistant Secretary-General Natalia Gherman of the
Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED) focused on
cooperation, "particularly in support of implementing key Security Council
counter-terrorism resolutions and the UN Global Counter-Terrorism
Strategy," a readout of the meeting from UNOCT said.
Voronkov and Gherman expressed their condolences for the
victims of the terrorist attack last month in Pahalgam that killed 26 people.
The delegation from India, which includes intelligence
officials, was at the UN headquarters to present India's case for declaring The
Resistance Front (TRF), the perpetrator of the Pahalgam massacre, an
international terrorist organisation and sanctioning it, according to sources
at the UN.
The TRF, an affiliate of the Pakistan-based
Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), which has been listed as an international terrorist
organisation by the UN.
The delegation was also meeting on Wednesday with the
monitoring team of the Security Council panel known as the 1267 Committee that
sanctions terrorist groups and those associated with them, the sources said.
The team, the sources said, is presenting the committee
with evidence of TRF carrying out Pahalgam attack and its other activities.
The committee is named after Security Council Resolution
1267 that calls for action against the Islamic State or Da'esh, and Al-Qaida,
and groups and people associated with them.
The delegation was also meeting with diplomats from UN
members to press for declaring TRF a terrorist organisation.
The readout from UNOCT of the meetings with the Indian
delegation said that for India and the UN counter-terrorism agencies the
"key areas of cooperation include UNOCT-led technical capacity-building
initiatives supported by India -- such as cybersecurity, countering terrorist
travel, supporting victims of terrorism, and countering the financing of
terrorism".
The delegation and the UN officials also "discussed
efforts to counter the use of new and emerging technologies for terrorist
purposes," the readout said.
These goals were set out in the 2022 Delhi Declaration
adopted by the UN Security Council's Counter-Terrorism Committee chaired by India
when it met in the Indian capital and paid special attention to emerging
terrorist threats through use of emerging technologies.
The declaration also called for the development of
guiding principles to be prepared with CTED's support on threats posed by
unmanned aircraft systems and the use of emerging financial technologies for
terrorist activities.
LeT was listed as an international terrorist organisation
in 2005 and sanctioned.
The sanctions list includes 27 names under which LeT
operates, including Pasba-e-Kashmir, and variations of Jamaat-ud-Dawa.
About a dozen individuals associated with it, including
its leader Hafeez Mohammed Saeed, have also been sanctioned along with three
organisations linked to it, including Jaish-e-Mohammed and Harkat-ul-Mujahideen.
The sanctions include freezing of their assets and travel
ban.
