International effort required to fight scourge of terrorism:PM (Embargoed till 2.30 a.m.)

BRASILIA - The Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, said on Thursday that an international collective effort is required to fight the scourge of terrorism.

Making his opening statement at the plenary session of the IBSA summit, Prime Minister Dr. Singh said: “Terrorism continues to pose a serious challenge to our developmental goals. It is a scourge that needs to be fought through collective international effort.”

Dr. Singh also said that all efforts should be made for early finalisation of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism in the United Nations.

Today’s appeal to IBSA countries to make a collective international effort to combat terrorism, follows a similar appeal made to leaders at the just concluded Nuclear Security Summit in Washington.

On April 12, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had sought US support in tackling “the menace of terrorism” during his bilateral meet with the United President Barack Obama at Blair House.

“Terrorist onslaught in our region, if it persisted, could affect our growth prospects,” Manmohan Singh told Obama at their first meeting since they met at the first state dinner of the Obama presidency in November last year.

Reminding Obama that terrorism “was an issue on which India and the US stood on the same side,” Manmohan Singh focused on the volatile situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan and stressed “how this menace was tackled would determine the future of the South Asian region.”

The U.S. President, while opening the main working session of his 47-nation Nuclear Security Summit, gave a call for unified action against nuclear terrorism.

He said the convergence of world leaders was an opportunity to act against one of the “greatest threats to global security.”

“It will require a new mindset-that we summon the will, as nations, as partners, to do what this moment in history demands,” he further stated.

Obama had said that finding solution to the problems of 21 century required collective effort. “I believe strongly that the problems of the 21st century cannot be solved by any one nation acting in isolation, they must be solved by all of us coming together.” By Ravinder Singh Robin (ANI)