Cross-border terrorism likely to dominate PM’s BRICS agenda

NEW DELHI: Cross-border terrorism is likely to again dominate PM Narendra Modi’s agenda at the BRICS summit later this month in South Africa. NSA Ajit Doval travelled to Durban last week for a BRICS security meet ahead of the summit where he underscored India’s contention that not enough had been done to check cross-border and state sponsored terrorism.

In the meeting with NSAs of other BRICS nations, Doval, according to diplomatic sources, said it was important to find a way to check what action was being taken by states to wipe out terror sanctuaries operating on their soil.

The big takeaway for India on terrorism from the Xiamen BRICS summit last year was the specific mention of Pakistan-based terror groups LeT and JeM in the BRICS Declaration. This was achieved with help from Russia after China blocked a mention of the same groups in the declaration of BRICS 2016 summit in Goa. India has insisted again in the BRICS preparatory meetings that the declaration this year too specifically name LeT and JeM.


However, the Xiamen Declaration was quickly undone by the RIC (Russia, India, China) joint communique in December 2017 which failed to mention the names of the same groups even though it called for “decisive and concerted actions” against globally proscribed terrorists and terror entities. In the meeting attended by Doval, the BRICS NSAs reaffirmed the “transnational nature of terrorism, which is evolving and necessitates a continuous reassessment of threats and sharing of perspectives amongst BRICS countries”.

They also agreed that BRICS countries should “continuously explore areas of convergence in the fight against terrorism”.

India last week welcomed the decision of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to place Pakistan in the grey list. Recalling Pakistan’s political commitment to address global concerns regarding its implementation of the FATF standards for countering terror financing and anti-money laundering, the government had said the freedom and impunity with which designated terrorists like Hafiz Saeed continued to operate in Pakistan was not in keeping with such commitments.