The Hindu : India, Israel resolve to fight terror globally

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Mar 26, 2004

International

International - India & World

India, Israel resolve to fight terror globally

JERUSALEM, MARCH 25. Contending that it is a global menace, India and Israel have pledged to cooperate in fighting terrorism globally by forging international alliances.

In an extensive discussion of the Joint working Group (JWG), touching upon whole gamut of experience in their individual fight against terrorism, the two countries, in a joint statement, emphasised the "growing need for counter-terrorism cooperation within the international community, specifically to strengthen political will and capacity building."

Jeremy Issacharoff, Deputy Director-General for Strategic Affairs at the Foreign Ministry, who led the Israeli side at the discussions, told PTI: "We exchanged our impressions on the recent trends in global terror — how it operates, how the financing is done and also tried to formulate possible ways of fighting it together at the diplomatic level, through media, through exchange of information that can lead to clamping of financial sources of terror, etc."

Another Israeli Foreign Ministry official said: "We had a few things to learn from the Indian experience. The discussion on link between drug smuggling and terrorism, ways of financing terror calls upon for cooperation between all the countries facing the grim situation to come together. We have resolved to cooperate in every possible way to defeat the menace in all its manifestations."

The nine-member Indian delegation, drawn from various Ministries, was led by R.M. Abhyankar, Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs, Director-General of the Foreign Ministry, Yoav Biran, initiated the talks.

It was the third meeting of the JWG since its inception and comes at a particularly tense moment following Israeli assassination of Hamas' spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, whom Israel blames for direct involvement in terror.

An Israeli political source said that the current situation also came up for discussion, and "Israel can understand India's viewpoint given the compulsions of its domestic politics.

However, being on the receiving end of terror it also understands us better.

The statement released by India's MEA yesterday on close scrutiny clearly brings this out." — PTI

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