India Pledges to Contribute $500,000 to UN Trust Fund for Counter Terrorism

NEW DELHI: India announced its decision to contribute $500,000 to the United Nations Trust Fund for Counter Terrorism this year, which is expected to further strengthen the organization's ability to fight against terrorism, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Saturday.

Jaishankar made this announcement during his keynote address at the plenary session of the United Nations Security Council's (UNSC's) special meeting of the Counter Terrorism Committee (CTC ) on 'countering the use of new and emerging technologies for terrorist purposes' in New Delhi on the second day of the session on Saturday.

India is going to contribute half a million dollars to the United Nations' efforts to counter global terrorism at a time when new and emerging technologies used by terror groups are posing fresh threats to governments around the world, the foreign minister said.

This is the first such meeting of the UNSC-CTC in India since it was established in 2001. The Permanent Representative of India to the UN is presently serving as the Chair of the Counter Terrorism Committee for 2022. The session started in Mumbai on Friday, where delegates paid tribute to the victims of terrorism through a solemn ceremony at Hotel Taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai on Friday.

In his address at the UNSC's special meeting in the national capital, Union Minister Jaishankar said, "India will be making a voluntary contribution of half a million dollars to the UN Trust Fund for Counter Terrorism this year to augment the efforts of Office of Counter-Terrorism in providing capacity-building support to member states in preventing and countering the threat of terrorism."

Jaishankar highlighted the fact that global threat of terrorism is growing and expanding, particularly in Asia and Africa, despite the best efforts of the UN Security Council (UNSC) to combat this 'gravest threat to humanity'.

"Terrorism remains the gravest threat to humanity. The UN Security Council in the past two decades has evolved an important architecture built, primarily around the counter-terrorism sanctions regime to combat this menace. This has been very effective in putting the countries on notice that had turned terrorism into a state-funded enterprise," he said.

"Despite this, the threat of terrorism is only growing and expanding, particularly in Asia and Africa, as successive reports of 1267 sanctions committee monitoring reports have highlighted," he added.

It was the first such conference, focused on challenging threats posed by terror groups in the face of new technologies, to be held outside the U.N.'s headquarters in New York.

Jaishankar said new technologies like encrypted messaging services and blockchain are increasingly being misused by terror groups and malicious actors, necessitating an urgent need for the international community to adopt measures to combat the threats.

"Internet and social media platforms have turned into potent instruments in the toolkit of terrorist and militant groups for spreading propaganda, radicalization and conspiracy theories aimed at destabilizing societies," he said in his keynote address at the plenary session.

The growing threat from the use of unmanned aerial systems such as drones by terror groups and criminal organizations was also highlighted by Jaishankar, who called them a challenge for security agencies worldwide.

"In Africa, drones have been used by the terrorist groups to monitor movements of security forces and even of U.N. peacekeepers, making them vulnerable to terrorist attacks," he added.

Earlier, on Friday, Jaishankar relayed India's regret at the U.N. Security Council's inability to act in certain cases, like banning terrorists because of political considerations, 'undermining its collective credibility and interests.' He did not take the name of China but referred to this hostile neighbour's decision to block U.N. sanctions against leaders of Pakistan-based extremist group Jaish-e-Mohammad, designated as a terrorist organization by the U.N.

India is hosting the two-day anti-terrorism meeting of the UNSC. The meeting in Delhi is being held under India's chair of the Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC).

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