External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj pitched for finalisation of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT) at the United Nation during her meeting with Mogens lykketoft , president-elect of the UN General Assembly, on Sunday. Sushma also stressed on the need for UN Security Council reforms to reflect current geopolitical realities and increasing role of developing nations. lykketoft is in India on a two-day visit. He will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday.

With the objective of providing a comprehensive legal framework to combat terrorism, India took the initiative to pilot a draft CCIT in 1996. The treaty proposes to define terrorists, ban them and make it binding for countries to deny funds and safe haven to them. While the draft text of the CCIT that emerged in 2007, was agreeable to most countries, a few like Pakistan had problem over a certain issues, particularly on the definition of terrorists. In fact, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation wanted to exclude “the activities of the parties during an armed conflict, including in situations of foreign occupation” from the purview of the Convention. However, negotiations for the resolution of these are on.

“No country can be immune to the threat of terrorism especially with the emergence of ISIS. It is important that there should be a collective effort to deal with this menace,” Sushma conveyed to lykketoft. In this regard, she also conveyed India’s expectations to achieve concrete forward movement under his presidency on the finalisation of the CCIT. India is looking forward to CCIT being signed during the 70th anniversary summit of the UN in September 2015.

lykketoft was unanimously elected by the UN General Assembly as the President of the 70th Session on June 15 and is scheduled to assume his new responsibilities with the commencement of the Session from September 15. He was earlier, the Speaker of the Danish Parliament and has served as Finance Minister and Foreign Minister of Denmark.