Doval to call for greater anti-terror cooperation within BRICS

India will use a BRICS meeting to be hosted by China this week to seek greater counter-terrorism cooperation, with focus on denying terrorists access to finance and weapons.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's National Security Advisor, Ajit Doval, will call for expanding counter terrorism cooperation within the BRICS nations, when he will attend a meeting with his counterparts from other nations in the bloc, which comprises Brazil, Russia, China, India and South Africa. Yang Jiechi, the State Councillor of China, will host the meeting of BRICS High Representatives responsible for National Security in Beijing on Thursday and Friday.

Notwithstanding the current face-off between Indian Army and Chinese People's Liberation Army in western Bhutan, both New Delhi and Beijing are keen to ensure that their cooperation with Brazil, Russia and South Africa within the multilateral framework of the BRICS remains unaffected by strains in India-China bilateral relations.

Even as the face-off continued in Doklam Plateau along disputed China-Bhutan border, an informal meeting of the BRICS leaders at Hamburg in Germany earlier this month saw Chinese President Xi Jinping lauding the momentum the bloc received during chairmanship of India, before it was passed on to his country following the summit at Goa in October 2016. Prime Minister Narendra Modi also said at the same meeting that India would extend full copperation to China in holding the next summit at Xiamen in southeastern coast of China from September 3 to 5 this year.

Yang and Doval are also Special Representatives of China and India for negotiations to resolve the boundary dispute. Yang is likely to hold a bilateral meet with Doval on the sideline of the BRICS security meeting this week, as it is customary for the host of such multilateral conclaves to have separate meeting with each of his guests leading the delegations of the respective countries. Sources, however, told the DH in New Delhi that Yang-Doval meeting might not immediately end the face-off between India and China.

Doval will call upon his counterparts from the BRICS nations to strive to expand counterterrorism cooperation within the bloc to include measures for denying terrorists access to finance and terror-hardware, such as equipment, arms and ammunition. He is also likely to underscore the need for a global legal regime to deal with the menace of international terrorism.

He will also stress the need to combat terrorism in all its manifestation, without making a distinction between “good terrorists” and “bad terrorists”.

Beijing's persistent policy of blocking New Delhi's bid to bring anti-India terrorists based in China's “all-weather friend” Pakistan under United Nations sanctions has been one of the several irritants between the two nations over the past couple of years.

Yang, Doval and their counterparts from the other BRICS nations will discuss ways to strengthen joint efforts on enhancing cyber security by sharing of information and best practices, combating cyber-crimes, improving cooperation between technical and law enforcement agencies including joint cyber security research and development and capacity building, sources said in New Delhi.

The situation in Afghanistan-Pakistan region and West Asia will also figure in the meeting of BRICS High Representative responsible for High Security.