NEW DELHI: A day after China extended its technical hold by three months on the US, France and UK-backed proposal to list Pakistani terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar as a designated terrorist by the United Nations, India on Friday said it hoped that countries sharing its concerns over international terrorism would cooperate in fighting all forms of terror.
Reacting on China’s move, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay said, “We can only hope that all these countries which share our concerns regarding the menace of international terrorism will cooperate in fighting all forms of terrorism.”
Baglay said Azhar had been involved in carrying out terror activities against India and it was a well-known fact.
In February, China had blocked the US move to include the Pathankot terror attack mastermind in the list of global terrorists and its deadline on its technical hold was until August 2.
While commenting on China’s aggressive posturing on the Dokalam standoff, Baglay maintained that India will continue to engage with China diplomatically and it has been coordinating with Bhutan to find a mutually-acceptable solution to the vexed issue.
“We continue to engage with China through diplomatic channels to find a mutually acceptable solution,” Baglay said, adding , “Our objective is to achieve peace and tranquillity and it will be achieved through diplomacy.” However, he refused to react China’s claim on reducing troops from the standoff site, by calling it an operational matter.
On the Masood Azhar issue, Beijing being a permanent member of the UN Security Council, has repeatedly blocked India’s move to put a ban on the JeM leader under the Al-Qaeda Sanctions Committee of the Council. JeM is already in the banned list. In March 2016, out of 15 members of the Security Council, only China rejected India’s bid to place Azhar on the 1,267 sanctions list that would subject him to an assets freeze and travel ban.