India calls for punitive measures against terrorist sponsoring nations

Paris, April 27: Terrorism is becoming the dominant feature of conflict in the 21st century these were words from the soil of France of MoS for External Affairs M J Akbar while addressing a Conference in Paris on the fight against terrorist financing for Daesh and Al Qaeda.

India has called for standardizing punitive measures against states that use terrorists as their first line of offense and use duplicity as a policy.

 

Akbar said, terrorists, particularly those impelled by dated ideologies like faith supremacy, challenge the very concept of the nation-state, and seek to replace it with faith-based space.

 

Akbar said for more than two decades the UN had been unable to agree upon a definition of terrorism and asked how do we fight an enemy we cannot define.

He said, indeed more cooperation is often seen between terrorist gangs, their sponsors, and affiliates than between nations fighting terrorism.

The minister said there was a need for cooperation on a counteroffensive against a lifeline of terrorism that is finance.

More than 70 countries taking part in the conference have committed to bolstering efforts in the fight against terrorism financing associated with the Islamic State group and al-Qaida. Participants at a conference in Paris agreed to "fully criminalize" terror financing through effective and proportionate sanctions "even in the absence of a link to a specific terrorist act."

The two-day event has been convened by French President Emmanuel Macron to coordinate efforts to reduce the terror threat in the long-term.