India and 54 African nations on Thursday decided to enhance cooperation to combat terrorism in all its forms and manifestations as they called on countries to ensure that their territories are not used for cross-border terror activities.
India and the African countries also decided to boost defence cooperation especially in maritime, through training, capacity building, sharing of information, surveillance and other measures in securing sea lines of communication, preventing piracy among others.
As per the documents, Delhi Declaration and India-Africa Framework for Strategic Cooperation adopted at the end of the 3rd India-Africa Summit, Africa and India vowed to enhance cooperation and coordination to combat terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, including countering violent extremism.
In this regard, they also decided to make concerted efforts for the early adoption of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism of the UN.
They acknowledged that terrorism and violent extremism have emerged as primary threats to nations and our societies and condemned them in all their forms and manifestations.
“The menace of non-state actors including armed groups has acquired a new dimension as they expanded geographically, acquired resources and new instruments to spread extremist ideology and draw recruits,” the Declaration said, adding that tackling this challenge requires global strategy and cooperation.
“We emphasise that no cause or grievance can justify acts of terror and resolve to maintain zero tolerance against terrorism. We call on all countries to ensure that their territories are not used for cross-border terrorist activities. We strongly condemn direct or indirect financial assistance given to terrorist groups or individual members thereof by States or their machinery, to pursue such activities,” it said.
India and the African countries also decided to share best practices and experiences in cyber security especially in combating cyber crime and use of Internet for terrorist purposes.
They stressed on the need to fight drugs and human trafficking and other forms of transnational organised crimes such as hostage taking, piracy, and illicit proliferation of small arms and light weapons and reiterated their resolve and commitment to work together in this regard.
The African countries and India decided to continue collaboration in the fields of peace and security including conflict prevention, resolution, management and peace building through exchange of expertise and training programs, strengthening regional and continental early warning capacities and mechanisms, enhancing the role of women in peace keeping and propagating the culture of peace.
They also decided to strengthen cooperation in enhancing capacity to contribute to peacekeeping and peace-building efforts including support to the African Standby Force (ASF), and through the recent announcement by India to conduct a new training course at the Centre for UN Peacekeeping (CUNPK) in New Delhi and by other Peacekeeping Training Centers in Africa dedicated for Training of Trainers from upcoming Troop Contributing Countries from Africa.
The Declaration said that the countries also decided to strengthen cooperation for greater involvement of the troop contributing countries in decision-making process and to promote the strengthening of the UN Counter-Terrorism mechanisms.
They called upon all States to ensure strict compliance with the UN Security Council sanctions regime on terrorism and called on all countries to ensure that their territories are not used for cross-border terrorist activities.
“We urge the international community to cooperate with urgency to adopt the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism in the 70th Session of the UNGA,” the Declarations said.