UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan has warned against politicisation of the UnitedNations’ counter-terrorism machinery, saying such a course would onlycompromise the integrity of the system.
“It is important that current structures like FATF (Financial Action TaskForce) and the 1267 Sanctions regimes are not used as political tools bysome to advance their geopolitical goals,” Ambassador Dr Maleeha Lodhi toldthe UN Security Council on Thursday.
“There is also a need to make these institutions more inclusive of thewider membership in their decision-making processes,” she added.
The Pakistani envoy was speaking in a debate on “Preventing and Combatingthe Financing of Terrorism,” a day after the United States bypassed theSecurity Council’s 1267 Sanctions Committee and circulated to the Council’s15 members a draft resolution seeking to put the Jaish-e-Mohammed chief,Masood Azhar, on the UN sanctions blacklist.
In her remarks, Ambassador Lodhi underscored the need for a holisticapproach to combat and defeat terrorism and the need for internationalcollaboration to achieve the shared objective.
She pointed out several gaps that existed in the international community’scounter-terrorism strategy, one being the lack of attention given to issuesof foreign intervention, foreign occupation, the continued denial of theright to self-determination to people living under foreign occupation andviolations of international law and the UN Charter.
The envoy asserted that despite being obvious causative factors, these areignored or cast aside.
She said that the international community agrees that continued andpersistent violations of human rights contribute to violent extremism.
“Yet killings continue in occupied Jammu and Kashmir and Palestine,” DrLodhi said, adding, “Brutalization and oppression of people struggling fortheir legitimate right to self-determination constitutes state terrorism.This too should be the focus of international attention.”
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She also warned against Islamophobia fanned by extremist groups in somewestern countries.
“Action must be taken against this deliberate hate mongering which oftenleads to violence.”
She said Pakistan has been the victim of terrorism sponsored by externalstakeholders but this only reinforced its will to fight against the menace.
Pakistan has adopted a multifaceted national counter-terrorism strategy, a20-point plan, including prevention and countering of terrorist financing,she said.
As a result of various measures, terrorist incidents are at a record low inthe country, the ambassador stressed.
Pakistan is largely a cash-based economy, which has made it difficult toimplement FATF recommendations in the past, she added.
