India, Russia have joint working group on counter-terrorism, worked on common objectives in FATF: MEA official

By Ayushi Agarwal

New Delhi [India], November 17 (ANI): India has a joint working group with Russia on counter-terrorism and the two countries have worked on common objectives in Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a senior MEA official said here.

Secretary (West), Ministry of External Affairs, Sanjay Verma said that the two countries work together on counter-terrorism and exchange notes.

"There are several tracks on which we do that. We have a joint working group with Russia on counter-terrorism. That is definitely an area where we work together. We exchange notes etc. Also in the FATF format till Russia was a member, now that membership is suspended or limited to a large extent, in the FATF process also we worked with Russia on common objectives," he said.

He was responding to a query during a joint press conference on the third 'No Money for Terror' (NMFT) Ministerial Conference on counter-terrorism financing which will begin here on Friday.

Director General NIA Dinkar Gupta said that several countries are participating in ministerial conference. Answering a query, he said Pakistan and Afghanistan are not participating in the conference.

"Seventy eight countries and multilateral organisations are participating in the third edition of the 'No Money For Terror' Conference being organised in the national capital on November 18-19," he said.

Responding to queries, Sanjay Verma said that China has been invited to the conference but its participation is not confirmed.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will deliver the inaugural address at the Ministerial Conference.

The conference will offer a platform for participating nations and organizations to deliberate on effectiveness of the current international regime on counter terrorism financing as well as steps required to address emerging challenges.

The conference will build on gains and learnings of previous two conferences held in Paris in April 2018 and in Melbourne in November 2019 and will work towards enhancing global cooperation to deny finances to terrorists and access to permissive jurisdictions to operate.

India was to host the third conference but it was postponed due to COVID-19 pandemic.

The conference will be attended by about 450 delegates from across the world, including Ministers, Heads of Multilateral organisations and Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Heads of Delegations.

This will be the second major international conference on terrorism to be hosted by India. The United Nations Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee meeting was held in India last month. It was the first time that such a meeting was held outside New York. (ANI)

Source: WORLD