Virtually on 17 December 2020, the 12th meeting of the India-Australia Joint Counter- Terrorism Working Group was held. The two countries’ respective delegations have led the respective expert delegations to discuss ongoing counterturn-term terrorism cooperation between them, Mahaveer Singhvi, Joint Secretary for Counter-terrorism of the Ministry of
External Affairs, and Mr. Tony Sheehan, Deputy Secretary for International Security, Humanitarian and Consular Group of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Australia.
Both parties emphasized their commitment to co-ordinate and cooperate against terror as laid down in a joint statement by Prime Ministers Modi and Morrison at the Leaders’ Virtual Summit held on 4 June 2020, on the Global Strategic Partnership between the Republic of India and Australia.
India and Australia strongly condemned terrorism in all its forms and expressions and stressed the need to strengthen international cooperation in a comprehensive and sustainable way in order to combat terrorism. The use of terrorist proxies as cross-border terrorism was condemned on both sides.
Both sides examined the threats from terrorist organizations endorsed by the United Nations and stressed the need for concerted action against all terrorist networks. Both sides shared opinions as an instrument in the fight against terrorism on the prohibition against terrorists and terrorist entities.
India and Australia stressed the urgent need for every country to take prompt, sustained, verifiable and irreversible measures to ensure that they are not controlled by territory for terrorist attacks and to bring the perpetrators of such assaults to justice swiftly. Australia re- condemned terrorist acts in India such as Mumbai, Pathankot, and Pulwama on 26/11 and reiterated its support for the Indian people and Government in the fight against terrorism.
India and Australia shared views on various areas of counter-terrorism cooperation such as the fight against radicalization and radical extremism, fighting terrorist financing, preventing exploitation of the web for terrorism and violent extremism, cooperation in law enforcement, information sharing, and capacity building. During the discussions, the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic in the fight against terrorism were also influenced.
Both parties committed themselves to work closely with their respective counterpart agencies to respond to these challenges and discussed ways to enhance their engagement in further enhancing interaction, cooperation, and information exchange in the fight against terrorism.
Both sides were also discussing counter-terrorism cooperation and ways to improve the cooperation in multilateral forums such as the UN, G-20, GCTF, ARF, IORA, FATF, and in consultations with Australia-India-Japan and the United States.
