Defence Minister Pranab Mukerjee with United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan in New York on Wednesday. — Photo: Mohammed Abdul Haq

United Nations: In an apparent reference to Pakistan, India on Wednesday asked the international community not to tolerate the actions of "sponsors and abettors" of terrorism or those who "wilfully fail to prevent terrorists from utilising their territories."

The world community should unite against terrorism, "one of the most crucial issues of our times," and take "practical measures" to fight it, Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee told the United Nations General Assembly session here.

Legal framework

Emphasising that the "notion that any cause can justify terrorism" should be rejected "collectively and unanimously," he advocated early finalisation and adoption of the Comprehensive Convention against International Terrorism, which would provide the legal framework on which a counter-terrorism strategy could be based.

Mr. Mukherjee also favoured universal disarmament as the "best non-proliferation measure," and asked the international community to take immediate steps to eliminate the threat of use of nuclear weapons.

"While this phenomenon [of terrorism] has become increasingly global, our collective response to it has remained rather inadequate," he said addressing the conference of 192 countries. "The international community must signal that it will no longer tolerate the actions of the sponsors and abettors of terrorism or of those who wilfully fail to prevent terrorists from utilising their territories."

Referring to the Mumbai train blasts, Mr. Mukherjee said, "No cause can ever justify the targeted killing of innocent men, women and children."

India hoped that the U.N. Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, adopted earlier this month, would provide the impetus to "unite the international community in its fight against terrorism via practical measures that facilitate cooperation by way of extradition, prosecution, information exchange and capacity building."

Within weeks of losing its campaign to block greater powers to China in the International Monetary Fund (IMF), India demanded U.N. intervention for quota reforms in the multilateral funding agency to enhance its "credibility and legitimacy."

"The U.N. should encourage that immediate steps are taken to initiate the second stage of IMF quota reforms, involving a basic revision of the quota formula and subsequent increase of quotas for all under-represented countries.

``And all this must be done in a time-bound manner," Mr. Mukherjee said.

India's demand assumes significance in the wake of position taken by it at the annual IMF conference in Singapore early this month for comprehensive reforms instead of the ad-hoc measures of increasing quota for China and three other countries. — PTI

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