Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: India continued to engage partners in cooperation on counter terrorism through Joint Working Groups on Counter Terrorism (JWG-CT) with 26 countries, said External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar. In this context, he quoted the latest annual report (2024) released by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) which detailed the India ‘s strong resolve in initiating collective action against terrorism. India has been engaging with regional and multilateral bodies such as BIMSTEC, G20, ASEAN Regional Forum, SCO, BRICS, EU, FATF and the QUAD Forum on Counter Terrorism.
Joint Working Group meetings on Counter Terrorism (JWG-CT) were held with the US, Kazakhstan, France, European Union, United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Russia. India also participated in the meeting of the Group of Legal Experts (GLE) of Regional Anti Terrorist Structure of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (RATS SCO) Council held in Beijing, China.
At the ASEAN level, the 11th ASEAN Senior Officials Meeting on Transnational Crime (SOMTC)+India Consultation was held in Vientiane, Laos. The 9th Annual BRICS Counter Terrorism Working Group Plenary and its Sub-Groups’ Meetings were held in July 2024 in Moscow while India also hosted the 8th Meeting of the BIMSTEC SubGroup on Prevention of Illicit Trafficking in Narcotic Drugs, Psychotropic Substances and Precursor Chemicals held in New Delhi.
On the multilateral front, India engaged with various bodies during the year, participating in the regional workshop on sharing good practices for enhancing rehabilitation and reintegration strategies which was organised by UNODC in association with the Government of Sri Lanka in Colombo.
The FATF Working Group meeting and Plenary were held in Singapore during which India’s Mutual Evaluation Report was adopted, placing the country in the “regular follow-up” category.
