India's decade-long 'subterranean' efforts paid off: Akbaruddin

India's decade-long persistent "subterranean" efforts to get Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar declared an international terrorist have finally paid off, India's Permanent Representative Syed Akbaruddin said on Wednesday.

"We have been persistent, diligent and in a subterranean manner, making all our efforts towards this goal," he said in a video statement. "Today that goal stands achieved."

"This is, for us, a significant outcome because we have been at it for several years," he added.

China, which had blocked the Security Council Sanctions Committee on al-Qaeda, Islamic State and associated groups and individuals four times from designating Azhar as an international terrorist, finally wilted under international pressure on Wednesday and rescinded its opposition.

 

Akbaruddin thanked Dian Triansyah Djani, the Permanent Representative of Indonesia who heads the Sanctions Committee, saying that he "was instrumental in ensuring that the process went smoothly and in accordance with our agreed understandings".

Djani also assumed the rotating presidency of the Security Council on Wednesday.

Akbaruddin said that Djani "has informed us that Masood Azhar stands designated as an individual who has been promoting terrorism globally".

He said that he was grateful to the United States, Britain and France, which were the "designating states", as well as "several others within the Council and outside the Council who came forward without any restraints and supported this Indian effort at not tolerating a terrorist".

To pressure Beijing, the US, joined by France and Britain, had circulated a draft resolution for the Security Council itself to impose sanctions on him. That would have required China to publicly veto the sanctions and defend its backing for Azhar.

(Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in and followed on Twitter @arulouis)

--IANS

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