United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism 

Ambassador-level Annual Briefing to Member States

[4 February 2022]

Remarks by Ambassador T.S. Tirumurti

Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations

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At the outset, I would like to thank the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism for organizing this important meeting. 

2. We greatly appreciate the role the UN Office of Counter Terrorism under USG Voronkov’s leadership is playing in helping member states in addressing capacity gaps in their counter-terrorism compliance. India has been contributing to the counterterrorism trust fund since 2018 to strengthen the efforts of countries of East and Southern Africa to counter the threat of terror financing and travel of terrorists. We underline the importance of adequate financing of UNOCT for its activities. 

3. The major takeaway from the adoption of 7th review resolution of the Global Counter Terrorism Strategy (GCTS) in June last year, was that we were able to keep our collective commitment toward fighting terrorism united. We reaffirmed yet again that there cannot be any excuse or justification for any act of terrorism, regardless of motivations of the terrorist actors as underlined in UN Security Council resolution 1566 of 2004. And more importantly, rejected the divisive efforts of a few member states, looking for labeling terrorism based on motivations, especially based on political and other ideologies. It is important that the UN response to terrorism remains united, unambiguous, and unequivocal.

4. However, it is equally important that we preserve the integrity of the GCTS and stop attempts to undermine this hard-earned consensus. I have always maintained that we should not go back to pre-9/11 era when we were dividing terrorist into “your terrorist” and “my terrorist” and categorized them and weakened our collective resolve. We see a renewal of this attempt by trying to divide terror again into categories and label them. For example, under the label of Xenophobia, Racism, and other forms of Intolerance or in the name of religion or belief, efforts have been made to bring into this discussion categories such as right-wing extremism, far right and far left extremism, violent nationalism, Racially Ethnically Motivated Violent Nationalism etc. What we need to understand is that in democracies right-wing and left-wing are part of the polity since they come to power through elections reflecting the majority will of the people. Democracy by definition contains a broad spectrum of ideologies and beliefs. We need to distinguish between the political ideologies which are part of a pluralistic democratic polity, as against radical ideologies which subscribe to terrorism. Our fight is against such radical ideologies and not against democracy. To paint them with the same brush is inaccurate and counterproductive.

5. The overall threat of terrorism has only increased. The threat posed by Al-Qaida, ISIL and their affiliates in Asia as well as in Africa, and their links with those designated under 1267 needs to be recognized and addressed. The recent report of 1988 Committee highlighted that how the close link between Taliban, especially through Haqqani network, and Al-Qaida and other terrorist groups still continues. We need to ensure that radical groups in one region does not draw sustenance from another. 

6. Further, a real emerging threat today is posed by the terrorist use of ICT, emerging technologies such as social media, new payment methods, video games, encrypted messaging services, cryptocurrencies, drones etc. for which most of the member states do not have adequate response capabilities. In fact, we have been witnessing cross-border terrorist attacks through drones. Global expert bodies such as Financial Action Task Force or FATF have been raising red flags about terrorist financing, and laxity of certain member states in bringing their practices at par with international CFT standards. We need to strengthen efforts of FATF. 

7. Countering terrorist narratives, particularly through internet and other online means, has remained a challenge. Enhanced online presence of young people during pandemic has exposed them to exploitation by terrorist group through hate speech and recruitment. Let us not forget that the greatest violators of human rights are the terrorists.

8. As the Chair of Counter Terrorism Committee, I look forward to enhance synergies between the CTC and UNOCT. Both these bodies play complementary roles. One of the aspects, which has not been fully explored is the role victims of terrorism and their networks can play in countering terrorism. We know that the UNOCT has put a spotlight on this issue. We are also reaching out to civil society to support our efforts on counter-terrorism. 

9. As the efforts are underway to prepare the report of the Secretary General mandated by the General Assembly to assess the threat posed by the terrorist acts on the basis of Xenophobia, Racism, and other forms of Intolerance, or in the name of religion or belief, I once again underline that we should not be selective in our approach but in fact seek to implement a zero-tolerance against terror.

I thank you!

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