India has issued a démarche to China after the communist country blocked a recent initiative by the US, the UK and France to bring Pakistan-based terrorist leader Masood Azhar under United Nations’s sanctions.
New Delhi also rejected Beijing’s suggestion that India and Pakistan should discuss to resolve differences on imposing UN sanctions on Masood Azhar, who leads terrorist organisation Jaish-e-Mohammed and is suspected to be the mastermind of several terror attacks in India.
The Ministry of External Affairs issued the démarche to Embassy of People’s Republic of China in New Delhi. A similar démarche has also been issued by Embassy of India in Beijing to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Chinese Government, official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, Vikas Swarup, said.
India lodged a protest with China after the communist country once again thwarted a fresh move by the United States to bring Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar under United Nations’s sanctions.
The US of late moved a fresh proposal at the UN panel established under the Security Council’s resolutions 1267, 1989 and 2253 seeking sanctions on Azhar. The US proposal was co-sponsored by two other permanent members of the Security Council – the UK and France.
The proposal was put forward in coordination with India. Russia, which is also a UNSC permanent member, supported the move and so did 10 other non-permanent members of the council.
China, however, was the only UNSC permanent member, which remained opposed to the proposal to bring the JeM chief under UN-mandated international sanctions. China in fact thwarted the process by putting the proposal on “technical hold” for six months.
“It is our understanding that this was a classic counter terrorism proposal meant to proscribe a dreaded terrorist leader Masood Azhar whose organisation JeM (Jaish-e-Mohammad) has already been proscribed by the UN 1267 Committee,” Swarup told journalists on Thursday.
New Delhi suspects that Azhar played a key role in planning the attack carried out by JeM terrorists on the Indian Air Force base at Pathankot in Punjab in January 2016.
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