India urges NAM to set up 'Working group' on terrorism

Asserting that "terrorism is the biggest enemy of human rights and it threatens the contemporary architecture of world stability, based on respect for sovereignty," India has urged the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) to set up a 'Working Group on Terrorism'.

Speaking at the 17th NAM Summit, Minister of State for External Affairs M J Akbar said, "Terrorism is the biggest enemy of human rights. The subjugation of terrorists is, therefore, protection of human rights. Terrorism threatens the contemporary architecture of world stability, based on respect for sovereignty. We must not be so naïve as to believe that terrorists do not have a political objective. They are anti-national in a fundamental sense: for they do not believe in the concept of a nation state."

"Today, terrorist bandit groups like Daesh, Hizbul Mujahideen, Jaish-e-Muhammad, Boko Haram, Al Shabaab and so many others of their ilk, want to establish empires of destruction bolstered by false ideology that perverts the faith they claim to represent," he added.

Asserting that terrorism is the biggest obstacle to development at a time when the poor are insisting, the Minister said that poor should not be made to wait long for prosperity.

"The first rights on economic growth must belong to those who need development most, and they must get it now, not tomorrow," he said.

He also urged the fellow nations to accept a specific route map towards our common horizon of peace and prosperity.

"We must ensure that existing United Nations structures as part of the Global Counter Terrorism Strategy function in a non-partisan and professional manner, above political expediency. This NAM summit must be as unambiguous on terrorism as it was once about apartheid and colonialism," he said.