Washington: With terrorism continuing to be a threat in many parts of the world, India and the United States pledged to further expand cooperation on law enforcement, information sharing, exchanging best practices, and increasing strategic convergence on counter-terrorism challenges under the US-India Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership.
An official statement of the US State Department, after the two-day eighteenth meeting of the US-India Counter-Terrorism Joint Working Group and the fourth session of the US-India Designations Dialogue was held in Washington, D.C., on October 26 outlined the strategy.
Mahaveer Singhvi, Joint Secretary for Counter-Terrorism at the Ministry of External Affairs and John T. Godfrey, US State Department Acting Coordinator for Counterterrorism, led their respective interagency delegations.
“Reaffirming counter-terrorism cooperation as an important pillar under the U.S.-India Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership, both sides pledged to further expand cooperation on law enforcement, information sharing, exchanging best practices, and increasing strategic convergence on counter-terrorism challenges,” read the statement.
The statement said that the United States reiterated its commitment to standing together with the people and government of India in the fight against terrorism.
“Both sides strongly condemned any use of terrorist proxies and cross-border terrorism in all its forms and called for the perpetrators of the 26/11 Mumbai attack to be brought to justice. They also called for concerted action against all terrorist groups, including groups proscribed by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) 1267 Sanctions Committee, such as al-Qa’ida, ISIS/Daesh, Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT), and Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM),” read the statement.
“In line with UNSC Resolution 2593 (2021), both sides called on the Taliban to ensure Afghan territory is never again used to threaten or attack any country, shelter or train terrorists, or plan or finance terrorist attacks. Both sides committed to continuing close consultations on developments in Afghanistan and potential terrorist threats emanating from there. The two sides also exchanged views on countering narco-terror networks and trans-national illegal weapons smuggling networks,” the statement said. The dialogue affirmed the growing strategic partnership between the two countries in the shared fight against global terrorism.
