Delhi: In a significant development, the United States moved the United Nations on Tuesday to ban Pathankot attack mastermind and Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) chief Masood Azhar.
On January 20, the then US Ambassador to India Richard Verma had said that any “objective reading” of India’s demand to designate Azhar a terrorist by the UN would lead one to support the case.
“We have to understand and work through what these objections are. Any objective reading of the case would lead one to support the designation (of Azhar by the UN Security Council),” Verma had told PTI in a telephonic interview on his last day in office in New Delhi.
He had said that US was disappointed that the issue has not got through the Security Council yet, but refrained from directly speaking on if China was “siding with terrorism” in this case.
China has repeatedly blocked India’s efforts to get the JeM chief banned by the world body.
On January 05, China had refuted Indian allegations that it had double standards on terrorism and had said that it took a “just” stand by blocking New Delhi`s bid to list Azhar as a global terrorist.
“Allegation that China adopts double standards on the UN Security Council 1267 committee listing matter does not stand. China takes action based on solid evidence that is the one standard we use,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang had said in Beijing, as per IANS.
Geng was responding to remarks by Minister of State for External Affairs MJ Akbar on Azhar.
China was the only country among the 15-member Counter-Terrorism Committee of the UN Security Council that objected to India`s application to list Azhar as a global terrorist.
The JeM chief has been accused of masterminding the 2016 Pathankot air base terror attack.
(With Agency inputs)
Source: Zee News