India calls for global cooperaton against terrorism

United Nations, Sep 27 (UNI) India today gave a clarion call for a strong response and broad-based international cooperation against terrorism, asking the international community to deny the use of territories to terrorists and reject the notion that any cause can justify the scourge.

Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who is representing India at the 61st Session of the UN General Assembly, in his address here stressed the need for sustained and specific cooperation by a variety of national, regional and global agencies to defeat terrorism.

Lamenting the inadequate collective global response to terrorism, Mr Pranab Mukherjee said the multiple ways in which terrorism challenges the core principles of humanity and the mandate of the United Nations, were underlined by the outrages perpetrated in India over the last few months.

Referring to the Mumbai bomb blasts, he said that barely two months ago, in a single black day, more than 200 lives were lost and more than 1000 injured by dastardly bombings in Mumbai and elsewhere in India.

These and other such incidents of outrage were clearly designed to spread maximum terror among ordinarily people. And ours is not the only country to be singled out by vicious and senseless acts of murder.

''A strong response to terrorism requires broad-based international cooperation denying the space available to terrorists, and increasing the capability of states to address terrorist threats. It requires sustained and specific cooperation by a variety of national, regional and global agencies,'' he said.

He urged the international community to ''collectively and unanimously'' reject the notion that any cause can justify terrorism.

''No cause can ever justify the targeted killing of innocent men, women and children. The international community must signal that it will no longer tolerate the actions of the sponsors and abettors of terrorism or of those who wilfully fail to prevent terrorists from utilising their territories. We hope that the strategy would provide the impetus to unite the international community in its fight against terrorism via practical measures that facilitate cooperation by way of extradition, prosecution, information exchange and capacity building,'' he added.

The Defence Minister said even though India had gone alongwith the Global Counter Terrorism Strategy, the Comprehensive Convention against International Terrorism would have provided the requisite legal framework upon which a counter-terrorism strategy could have been based. ''It cannot be beyond our collective ingenuity to reach an agreement on this Comprehensive Convention, even though we have missed the target of doing so in the 60th UN General Assembly.

We must work together to finalise and adopt the Comprehensive Convention, at least during this session of the General Assembly,'' he said.

Asserting that the existence of nuclear weapons continued to threaten international peace and security, Mr Mukherjee said the best non-proliferation measure was universal disarmament and the international community needed to take immediate steps to eliminate the threat of nuclear weapons.

He called for reviving the momentum for achieving a nuclear weapons-free and non-violent world through negotiations in a time bound manner.

India will be presenting a working paper at this session of the UNGA on the issue of nuclear disarmament, he disclosed.

He said that in recent years, new dangers had emerged due to the link of proliferation of WMD related materials and technologies to non-state actors and terrorist groups.

The international community needed to work together to meet these challenges.

''India's record in this regard is impeccable and we have instituted effective measures to ensure that technologies developed by us are not leaked in any way,'' he said.

Referring to the scourge of HIV/AIDS, Malaria, Avian Influenza and Tuberculosis, he said these were seriously threatening the future of many developing countries and called for an enhanced global collaborative effort to confront the challenges.

He also atressed the need to address the special needs of developing countries, especially in Africa and the vulnerable small states.

India would continue to expand the programme of South-South cooperation through New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD), through TEAM 9 and by means of the connectivity mission in Africa as well as assistance, capacity-building and technology transfer aimed at reducing the vulnerabilities of small states.

He said the need for a comprehensive reform of the UN had never been more imperative and called for enfranchising the UN to meet the challenges by reinforcing its role and authority as the core of real multilateralism.

Referring to the international security system, Mr Mukherjee called for a comprehensive reform of the United Nations and said the recent events in Lebanon, and the stasis in Middle East Peace Process (MEPP), had highlighted the growing failure of the institution designated by the charter with primary responsibility for issues relating to peace and security.

''There is wide acceptance that the Security Council can no longer be regarded as being reflective of the changed international environment that has emerged since the time of its creation. The Security Council has not only to be more representative but also more effective if it is to be able to satisfactorily perform the role mandated to it by the Charter,'' he added.

He said the UN had needlessly diverted its attention to issues and areas that went beyond its mandate. For instance, the inclusion of items on its Agenda that have nothing to do with peace and security represents an encroachment on the roles mandated to other UN bodies.

''To ensure that the international community exercises real ownership of the process of securing our world, it is essential that comprehensive reform of the Security Council is undertaken and that its membership is expanded in both permanent and non-permanent categories.'' He said the revitalisation of the General Assembly was intertwined with the reform of the Security Council and it was no coincidence that its reform too had long been frustrated.

''A strengthened and more effective United Nations presumes a revitalised General Assembly that exercises its role and authority in the areas of responsibility assigned to it by the Charter. These include its effectively addressing topics such as international law and human rights, financial, budgetary and administrative matters, as well as the global economic architecture and important issues related to development,'' he added.

Mr Mukherjee, while appreciating the important role of private sector investment, said it cannot replace public investment in developing countries whose absorptive capacities are often limited and where physical and social infrastructure is weak. ODA remained an important means to augment public investment in areas such as human capital development and rural infrastructure, which rarely attracted private sector investment.

This process of increasing the available pool of resources for investment in the social and economic infrastructure of developing countries could be promoted at one level, by developed countries, through expeditiously reaching the target of setting aside 0.7 per cent of the GDP for ODA.

He also underlined the need to develop innovative sources of financing and evolving a broader understanding of ways to encourage least developed countries out of the debt trap by extension of debt-cancellation programmes, without insisting on conditionalities.

Expressing disappointment at the impasse in international trade negotiations, he said early resumption was desirable but adherence to the existing mandate was imperative--the mandate of the Doha Declaration, the July Framework and the Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration.

''When agriculture was brought into the ambit of negotiations at the creation of the WTO, the developing countries were given a clear understanding that trade distorting agricultural subsidies would be phased out in a time-bound manner. Minimising the vulnerabilities of the poor farmers must be our collective priority,'' he added.

He said there existed an overwhelming logic for giving the United Nations a role in providing direction to the comprehensive reform of the international financial and trading systems.

These reforms must be aimed at building an international architecture reflecting the realities of the 21st century and should be able to create an environment that effectively supports national efforts to eradicate poverty.

He said the UN should encourage immediate steps to initiate the second stage of IMF quota reform, involving a basic revision of the quota formula and subsequent increase of quotas for all under-represented countries.

UNI