New Delhi, June 27 (UNI) External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said today that the objective of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is to fight terrorism, and India wanted a reference to terrorism in the outcome document, but one country opposed its inclusion -- in obvious reference to Pakistan.



Addressing a media briefing here, the EAM said:



“The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), its objective is to fight terrorism; this organisation exists to fight terrorism.

“So, what happened was that when Rajnath ji (Defence Minister Rajnath Singh) went for the SCO defence ministers meeting and there was a discussion on the outcome document, one country, you can guess which one, one country said, ‘no, no we do not want a reference to that’.”

He said that SCO runs by unanimity, “and one country said we do not agree that there should be any reference to terrorism, and Rajnath-ji said if there is no reference to terrorism then we will not accept that statement”.

India refused to sign the joint statement at the two-day SCO Defence Ministers meeting in China as Beijing and Islamabad did not want the Pahalgam terror attack mentioned in it, but were adamant on inclusion of the Jaffar train hijack incident in Balochistan.



Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, who attended the conference in Qingdao, stressed the need to bring the perpetrators, organisers, financiers and sponsors of terrorism to justice and asserted that “epicentres of terrorism were no longer safe and India would not hesitate to target them”.



He stated that the biggest challenges faced by the region were related to peace, security and trust-deficit, with increasing radicalisation, extremism and terrorism being the root cause of these problems, a Defence Ministry statement said.



"It is imperative that those who sponsor, nurture and utilise terrorism for their narrow and selfish ends must bear the consequences. Some countries use cross-border terrorism as an instrument of policy and provide shelter to terrorists. There should be no place for such double standards. SCO should not hesitate to criticise such nations,” the Defence Minister said.

The MEA spokesperson, in his media briefing yesterday, referring to the SCO joint statement said:

“India wanted concerns on terrorism reflected in the document, which was not acceptable to one particular country, and therefore the statement was not adopted.

“But we issued a press release. The press release is very instructive in how we look at the threat of terrorism. Raksha Mantri in his articulation in his address called upon the SCO member countries to come together, unite to fight terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. He also reiterated the need to uphold the perpetrators, organisers, financiers, sponsors of reprehensible acts of terrorism, including cross-border terrorism, to be held accountable and bring them to justice.”

“I want to emphasise that we clearly presented our position on terrorism—what our stand is, and what we believe—that the entire world must come together to combat this threat of terrorism. We put this view forward strongly at the forum,” he said.

The SCO Defence Ministers' meeting was held on June 25 and 26 in Qingdao.

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