UN Counter Terrorism Committee has been lax in questioning Pak: Tharoor

NEW DELHI - Former Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor on Tuesday suggested that India should try to use the United Nations mechanism to check the terrorists’ activities from the soil of its neighbouring country Pakistan.

Releasing a book on “Counter Terrorism in South Asia” published by Observer Research Foundation and the Heritage Foundation of the US; Congress MP Tharoor said there are various options available to check the menace of terrorism, which is not being looked at by both India and the US.

The book is a volume of collection of papers presented and the discussions that followed at the ORF-Heritage Foundation Counter Terrorism Dialogue that took place in New Delhi in July last year.

Tharoor, a former UN Under Secretary General, pointed out that India has begun the year by becoming the chairman of the Counter Terrorism Committee of the United Nations, and it could use the mechanism to expose Pakistan on its claims of counter terrorism.

He said the UN Counter Terrorism Committee is supposed to monitor compliance by member States under Security Council Resolution 1373 and other instruments. The States are supposed to report on their compliance.

“The Committee has been rather lax in questioning Pakistan about its lack of compliance on some of the basic requirements”, including reporting the movement of suspected terrorists, exporting terrorism, financial transfers, arms transfers etc,” Tharoor said.

“Perhaps the time has come to seriously consider whether Pakistan’s record justifies raising questions about the extent of its compliance. Raising questions about whether it may found to be not in compliance with the Security Council determination on the Chapter 7 of the UN Charter which is binding on all States, including Pakistan”, he added.

Shashi Tharoor further said following this, other consequences would follow, like sanctions and restrictions on travels, funds, etc.

Tharoor reminded Dr. Lisa Curtis of the Heritage Foundation of the mechanism in US like the “class action suit” through which damages can be sought for the loss incurred in the terrorist activities of Pakistani terrorists and the freezing of the accounts of the institutions behind the terrorist activities.

Saying that the use of terrorism as an instrument of state policy by Pakistan is no longer a topic for serious debate, Tharoor said that in India the State has an Army, while in Pakistan, the Army has the State.

“In Pakistan, one join the Army to not to defend the country, but to run the country,” Tharoor said explaining the Army’s interests in all walks of life.

Cautioning the policy-makers while dealing with Pakistan, Tharoor said, “We are dealing with a society not merely radicalized but militarized also.”

“The combination of the military domination of the state institutions and radicalization of the society is a matter of great compelling and urgent concern to all of us in the country,” he added pointing out that in its entire history, not a single civilian government was allowed to complete its full term in Pakistan.

Shashi Tharoor further said: “A group of individuals who ought to be outlawed or treated to be as outlaws but are not being so because in fact the custodians of international law have found it expedient to treat with them as if they have the same enemies as we do. But others do not have the same enemies as we do. They are the enemies we have. That is what we need to understand.”

Pointing out that India has not sent any terrorist across the border to bomb hotels or Parliament or institutions, Tharoor said: “There is only one country for which such violence emanated. Let us not proceed in drawing in issues of moral or practical equivalence which in fact are not simply justified by known facts”.

Speaking on the occasion, Tharoor appealed to the international community not to take hasty steps regarding Afghanistan, reminding them that “success takes time” and their forces are still there in Japan, Germany and Korea even after decades.

“The international community continues to maintain its sustained interest in developing security institutions and necessary stable conditions to protect development work,” Tharoor said, adding that the international community should see that another Osama Bin Laden is not born there or conditions were created to flourish there. (ANI)