India and Saudi Arabia Wednesday strongly condemned the militant attack on the Central Reserve Police Force in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district and called upon countries to renounce use of “terrorism” as an instrument of state policy and underlined the importance of comprehensive sanctioning” of militants and their organisations by the United Nations.
The remarks on the UN sanctions regime during discussions between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and visiting Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman came two days after the joint statement issued during the visit of the Saudi Arabian leader to Pakistan which had “underlined the need for avoiding politicisation of UN listing regime”.
However, there was no direct mention of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) which has claimed the responsibility for Pulwama attack that killed 40 CRPF personnel last week. India has linked Pakistan with the attack.
Briefing the media following delegation-level talks between Modi and Salman here, secretary (Economic Relations) T.S. Tirumurti said the two leaders agreed to constitute a comprehensive security dialogue at the NSA level and set up a joint working group on counter-terrorism and agreed to increase the frequency of direct flights between India and Saudi Arabia by 3,84,000 seats per annum which will give a huge boost to tourism.
PM Modi, in his remarks at the joint media interaction with the Saudi leader, mentioned the “barbaric terror attack” in Pulwama and said it was another “manifestation of the danger posed by terrorism to humanity”. “We agree that to deal with it effectively, there is need to put all possible pressure on countries which are giving any kind of support to terrorism,” PM Modi said.
Prince Salman, in his remarks, said that “extremism and terrorism were common concerns of the two countries and Saudi Arabia will fully cooperate with India”.
He said the two leaders expressed “strong condemnation of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations”.