HANGZHOU (China): Without naming Pakistan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told the world leaders at the G20 summit that “one nation is spreading agents of terror in the region,” and asked the world community to unite against this scourge.
“One single nation in South Asia is spreading agents of terror in countries of our region,” Mr Modi told the leaders of the world’s most powerful economies on the last day of the G20 summit in Hangzhou, China on September 5.
“…there are some nations that use it as an instrument of state policy,” he added.
There is no prize for guessing who the Indian leader was referring to as Pakistan’s military-ISI establishment, in collusion with proxy jihadi groups, has targeted India by launching savage terror strikes in the country.
Lauding the G20 initiative to combat financing of terrorism, Mr Modi exhorted the world community to “speak and act in unity and to respond with urgency to fight” terror, Modi said. “Those who sponsor and support terrorism must be isolated and sanctioned, not rewarded,” he said.
“India has a policy of zero tolerance to terrorism because anything less than that is not enough. For us, a terrorist is a terrorist,” he said in a hard-hitting intervention shortly before he said goodbye to Chinese President Xi Jinping and left for Delhi.
Enhancing counter-terror cooperation was a cross-cutting theme of Mr Modi’s multifarious engagements at the G20 summit.
He is expected to renew the focus on the imperative for global solidarity against terrorism at the India-ASEAN and East Asia Summits in Laos, where he is also expected to hold a bilateral meeting with US President Barack Obama.
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- Manish Chand is Founder and Editor-in-Chief of India Writes Network (www.indiawrites.org) and India and World, a pioneering magazine focused on international affairs. He is CEO, Centre for Global India Insights, an India-based think tank focused on global affairs.
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