India and France have underlined the need to ensure that Afghan territory does not become a source of radicalisation and terrorism, regionally or globally, and is never again used to threaten or attack any country or to shelter, recruit or train terrorists.
Meeting in a month that marks the 13th anniversary of the 2008 Mumbai attacks and the 6th anniversary of the 2015 Paris attacks, they also reaffirmed their unequivocal condemnation of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations including cross border terrorism, and share their resolve to stand together in the common fight against global terrorism.
The two countries held the 15th Meeting of their Joint Working Group on Counter Terrorism in Paris yesterday. Mahaveer Singhvi, Joint Secretary (Counter Terrorism) at the Ministry of External Affairs and Philippe BERTOUX, Director for Strategic Affairs, Security and Disarmament at the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, led respective inter-Agency delegations.
The two sides stressed the need for all countries to ensure that territories that are under their control cannot be used to plan, launch terrorist attacks against any other country, shelter or train terrorist fighters.
They exchanged views on threats posed by UN sanctioned terrorist entities and individuals and emphasized the need for taking concerted action against all terrorist networks including al-Qa’ida and ISIS/Daesh, as well as Lashkar e-Tayyiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), and Hizb-ul Mujahideen etc, including making sure that perpetrators of terrorist attacks are systematically and expeditiously brought to justice.
The two sides also exchanged views on proscription of terrorist individuals and entities as one of the tools to combat terrorism. Both sides shared information about their priorities and procedures for pursuing sanctions and designations against terrorist entities and individuals
Both sides exchanged views on various areas of cooperation in the sphere of counter-terrorism, countering illegal narcotic drugs and arms smuggling, and expressed their will to keep sharing information on countering radicalization and violent extremism, combating financing of terrorism, preventing misuse of the internet for terrorist or violent extremist purpose, acting against internationally designated entities and individuals.
The two countries committed themselves to working closely together to respond to these challenges and discussed ways to deepen engagement between their respective counterpart agencies to further advance cooperation in the sphere of counter-terrorism.