India raises blacklisting of Masood Azhar with China

Beijing: India on Monday raised the issue of blacklisting Pakistan-based terrorist Masood Azhar with China as Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale met Chinese State Councillor Wang Yi and told him that Beijing needed to be “sensitive” to New Delhi’s concerns. On a two-day China visit, Gokhale is understood to have made attempts to convince Wang Yi not to block a resolution to declare Azhar an international terrorist at a UN panel. China in the past has repeatedly blocked all such resolutions by India, the US, Britain and France by placing a “technical hold” on them at the UN 1267 sanctions committee.

This has soured China’s ties with India where Azhar is wanted for plotting deadly terror attacks. Azhar heads a Pakistani terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed that claimed responsibility for killing 40 killing CRPF personnel in a suicide bombing in Jammu and Kashmir in February.

Last month, Beijing’s placed its latest “technical hold” on the US-sponsored resolution against Azhar, a move that India called “disappointing”. The US had slammed Beijing's move, drafting and circulating its own draft resolution against Azhar at UN Security Council. Gokhale’s visit comes at a time when Beijing is facing mounting international pressure to declare Azhar an international terrorist. According to sources, the issue of designation of Masood Azhar as an international terrorist was figured in Gokhale’s meet with Wang, who is also China’s Foreign Minister.

In his opening remarks Gokhale said: “We will work together with the Chinese side to deepen mutual understanding, strengthen mutual trust to implements the decisions that are taken by the leaders and do it in a manner where we are sensitive to each other’s concerns,” Gokhale said while meeting Wang and Vice Foreign Minister Kong Xuanyou. Gokhale, who was also India’s former Ambassador to China, said both sides were working to implement what was agreed between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Wuhan summit last year. “It’s been a year since our leaders met in Wuhan and my colleagues, Vice (Foreign) Minister Kong Xuanyou and I have been following up on efforts to see that to implement the understandings that were reached at the meeting. (IANS)

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