Goa declaration contains strongest ever language against terrorism amongst all past BRICS summits: India

Delhi: Ministry of External Affairs said on Thursday that Goa declaration contains the strongest ever language against terrorism amongst all past BRICS summits.

Addressing the press in the national capital, MEA spokesperson, Vikas Swarup said, "The word 'terror' and 'terrorism' feature some 37 times in the declaration."

He added, "We're all aware which country is the epicentre of terrorism. At the same time we do have an ongoing dialogue and conversation with China on terrorism."

On October 16, the five-nation grouping of BRICS had asked all countries to prevent "terrorist actions" from their territories and had called for expeditious adoption of an India-backed global convention by the UN to fight the menace effectively.

A declaration adopted at the annual summit of grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa had called upon all nations to adopt a comprehensive approach in combating terrorism, violent extremism, radicalisation, recruitment, movement of terrorists including foreign terrorists and blocking sources of financing terrorism.

"We call upon all nations to work together to expedite the adoption of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT) in the UN General Assembly without any further delay," the Goa declaration issued at the end of the Summit had said.

It had also asked the countries to adopt a "holistic" approach in successfully combating terrorism.

On briefing the Parliamentary panel on surgical strikes carried out by India, he said, "Proceedings of the Parliamentary standing committee are confidential. It would not be appropriate for me to comment on the issue. I will not comment on a matter which is confidential and must remain confidential."

"I am not going to answer any questions pertaining to the particular briefing because those briefings are supposed to be confidential in nature. I cannot breach parliamentary privileges," said Swarup pointed out.

According to a few members present at the meeting on Tuesday, Jaishankar had said the Army had carried out "target specific, limited-calibre, counter-terrorist operations" across the LoC in the past too but it was for the first time the government had gone public about it.

The comments appeared to contradict Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar's claim that it was for the first time a cross-LoC surgical strike was carried out by the army.

Government sources later clarified that Jaishankar told the panel that whether cross-LoC surgical strikes were undertaken by the Army in the past only the military will know as no "message" about such assaults were conveyed, as per PTI.

On SAARC Swarup said, "Our interest in SAARC remains intact but our concern is that connectivity, trade-cooperation and terror-free atmosphere aren't there. Our intention is not to throw out the baby with bath water, our intention is just to clean up the bath water."

(With Agency inputs)