Taking forward their security cooperation to a more intense level, India and the US concluded their first Counter Terrorism Designations Dialogue on Tuesday. Held over two days between the officials of US and India’s Ministry of External Affairs and Home Affairs, the Dialogue focused on increasing bilateral cooperation on terrorism-related designations.
During the meeting, India shared names of specific terror groups like Jaish-e-Mohammad, lashkar-e-Tayyeba and entities like Hafiz Saeed and Dawood Ibrahim along with other terror heads operating from Pakistan.
There was a consensus on intelligence sharing and imposing sanctions on such persons and groups for curtailing their activities. The names discussed in the meeting will be placed before the UNSC 1267 Committee for sanctions. Besides, such entities will also be sanctioned by the US State Department which will lead to automatic sanctioning by several other countries and the European Union.
“The establishment of this mechanism reflects shared Indian and US commitments to strengthen cooperation against terrorist threats. The Indian and US delegations exchanged information on procedures for pursuing designations against terrorist groups and individuals, through domestic and international mechanisms. They also discussed best practices for effective implementation of the designations,” Ministry of External Affairs and the US Government said in a statement.
The decision to hold such a dialogue was taken during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US this year where he and President Trump agreed to take concrete measures against terrorism. The dialogue is part of India-US Strategic engagement for coordinating terrorists designations.