After PM Modi, Jaishankar Heads For UNSC With Terrorism On Agenda
(This was originally posted in Hindustan Times by Shishir Gupta)
After Prime Minister Narendra Modi, External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar is leaving for New York next Monday to chair United Nations Security Council (UNSC) special sessions on terrorism and peacekeeping on August 18 and 19. India is President of UNSC for this month.
According to UN diplomats, the EAM’s session on peacekeeping will be centered on securing the peacekeepers through a new application. India has a proud history of UN peacekeeping going all the way back to 1950s. It has contributed over 1,95,000 troops, the largest number from any country, participated in more than 49 missions and 168 Indian peacekeepers have lost their lives while serving the missions. India also provides eminent force commanders for key UN missions.
However, the meeting on terrorism at the UNSC will be important in the context of rise of Taliban in Afghanistan and the umbrella it provides to global terrorist groups based in Pakistan. Since 1986, India has proposed a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism, but the said document has not been adopted as there is no unanimity on the definition of terrorism among member states.
It is understood that Jaishankar will leave for UNSC on August 16 to chair the two meetings. He will return to India and then fly to Mexico, Guyana and Panama via New York for long pending bilateral visits two days later.
Terrorism is antithesis to all that UN stands for with non-state actors targeting innocents to achieve political objectives either for themselves or for their political masters. India has been special target of Islamist terror groups based in Pakistan with thousands of innocents losing their lives all over the country particularly Jammu and Kashmir since the 1990s. Besides, countries in West Asia, Europe and the US have also been at the receiving end from terrorist and terror group like the so called Islamic State.
The UNSC meeting on terrorism has come at a time when the ultra-conservative Islamists of Taliban are terrorising the innocents in a bid to grab political power in Kabul after the US-led coalition forces leave Afghanistan on August 31. The Sunni Pashtun group has covert support of neighbouring Pakistan in terms of cadre, weapons, fuel, food and medical supplies through trans border Khyber and Spin Boldak passes.
