The 2016 BRICS Joint Declaration after the weekend summit in Goa in India called for a comprehensive approach to combat terrorism and its sponsors.
They five member nationals also agreed to work together to combat “cross-border” terrorism, but India Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s guests held off from signing up to his fierce condemnation of India’s arch-rival Pakistan as the “mothership of terrorism”.
Strongly condemning the recent terror attacks against some BRICS countries, including India, the group said all nations should adopt a comprehensive approach to prevent the radicalization, recruitment and movement of terrorists.
They also called for the blocking of sources of financing terror through money laundering, drug trafficking and other criminal activities.
“We call upon all nations to work together to expedite the adoption of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism in the UN General Assembly without any further delay,” the Goa declaration said.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said those who shelter, support and sponsor terror would be designated as terrorists.
The BRICS nations also agreed that states should cut off political support to terrorists, whether based on ideological, religious, political, racial, ethnic or other reasons.
Earlier, Modi, who is pushing to isolate Pakistan following a surge in tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbors, urged his peers to take a strong united stand against the “mothership of terrorism” in the South Asian region, in a thinly veiled reference to Pakistan.
He condemned the mindset which proclaims terrorism is justified for political gains. BRICS must speak in one voice against that threat, Modi said, without naming Pakistan directly.
Islamabad did not immediately react to Modi’s remarks.
Just weeks before the BRICS Summit, suicide attackers from across the border attacked an army camp in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir, killing 19 Indian soldiers.
Since that attack, India has been making efforts to diplomatically isolate its neighbor.
Modi is right, it is well known fact that Pakistan used the Afghanistan aid dollars during the Soviet occupation to serve it’s own military/economic purposes rather than helping the Afghans. Pakistan helped create the Taliban who came out of nowhere to suddenly challenge the Afghanistan government, ISI agents imbedded themselves with the Taliban to commit egregious crimes against humanity and Afghanistan’s ancient historic relics and world renowned Bamiyan Buddha statues. Pakistan aided the Taliban to level the city of Kabul, blockaded food convoys into the city in attempts to starve the population into submission,
Thanks to Modi’s strident pseudo-Nationalism based on his party’s anti-secular platform and his abject failure in diplomacy, India is now equated with Pakistan on pretty much all levels diplomatically. It will take a decade before India’s archaic foreign-policy mavens wake up to geopolitical reality.
In the meanwhile Pakistan’s devious diplomacy and its ability to leverage one power against another has yielded a tremendous harvest !! Terrorism, when wielded deftly, is an excellent proxy for war. This is a lesson that can be learned and repeated by any State anywhere.
Kudos to Pakistan. They were never able to form a democratic State but have instead outclassed and outsmarted their neighbor. Screw the peeps !!