Pakistan scuttled UN resolution against terrorism: Ajit Kumar Doval

NEW DELHI: An India-sponsored UN convention on terrorism could not be adopted for over a decade now as nations like Pakistan have tried to define terrorists as freedom fighters, National Security Adviser Ajit Kumar Doval has said.

Delivering his key note speaker at an international security conference in Delhi, Doval said that since 2001 there had been an idea to have a comprehensive UN convention on terrorism but the failure to have one is due to “one reason – people could not define terrorism.”

He recalled that the Kuala Lumpur conference it was almost accepted, but for one point.

“Pakistan wanted that the causative factor—freedom fighters—should not be treated as terrorists.” He said because of Pakistan’s objection the adoption of the UN convention on terrorism has been held back. “But should something happen, there should be a collective response.”

In 2001 when Vajpayee-led government was in power, India took up initiative for a global convention on defining terrorism and finding commonly accepted means to combat it. “At that time a majority of the global powers felt that we should only look at tactics and methods used by such actors to define terror…But UN resolution 1373 exists and why can’t we have convergence without defining terrorism?,” he quipped.

Doval, in his first major speech since becoming NSA, rued that in the past 13 years while individual countries have honed their independent anti-terror mechanisms and networks, countries have failed to jointly act against terror at the international level, except to hold conferences.