Underlining that the talks about combating terrorism have “not been matched by our actions”, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj reminded the member countries of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) that terrorism has been “one of the foremost threats to international peace and security”.
“It (terrorism) maims and kills our citizens and undermines the ability to attain development goals,” said Swaraj at the 18th mid-term ministerial meeting of the NAM in Azerbaijan’s capital city of Baku.
She said that India is committed to NAM’s “shared goal of global elimination of nuclear weapons”.
In her address the EAM urged the member countries to strengthen the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT), proposed by India in 1996, in order to chart a course to decisively tackle terrorism.
“Discussions have made little progress even while terrorists continue to operate with greater impunity and inhumanity,” the minister said urging the gathering to galvanise the international community to renew the CCIT commitment.
“The challenges we face today such as nuclear escalation, armed conflict, refugee flows, terrorism, poverty and worsening environmental degradation – all require more effective multilateralism. The fundamental values and principles on which the Non Aligned Movement is based are, therefore, even more relevant today,” the EAM said.
Swaraj also spoke on India’s support to Palestine calling it “a reference point of our foreign policy”.
“At this juncture, this would be a good way for NAM to manifest its solidarity with the Palestinian people,” Swaraj said.
At the last UN General Assembly High Level segment, a strong desire was voiced by the international community for change and reforms at the United Nations, she said.
“To date, the Inter-Governmental Negotiation process, has been carefully nurtured into a credible collective process for negotiation on this important subject.
“The time has come to move to the next phase and commence text based negotiations – a demand made by an overwhelming majority of UN members including most NAM members,” she said.
She said that genuine global partnerships to achieve the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) need to be forged.
Highlighting the launch of the International Solar Alliance (ISA), an initiative by India and France, Swaraj urged the countries who are not a member of the alliance to join it.
“I call upon my friends who have not yet joined the alliance to do so,” said Swaraj.
More than 60 countries from around the world had joined the ISA before its official launch in India during the visit of French President Emmanuel Macron.
At the NAM meeting, Swaraj also said that no effort to reform the UN will be complete without reforms of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), which India had been strongly pushing for.
The meeting was chaired by Jorge Arreaza, Foreign Minister of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
The NAM meeting kicked off in Baku on 5 April. More than 800 delegates are taking part in the conference.
(With inputs from agencies.)