Are India, China close to Azhar resolution?

India has shared with China “all evidences” of the terrorist activities of Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and its chief Masood Azhar, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said as Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale held talks with the Chinese leadership in Beijing. Gokhale met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and told him that Beijing needed to be “sensitive” to New Delhi’s concerns.

“We have shared with China all evidences of the terrorist activities of Jaish-eMohammad and its leader Masood Azhar. It is now for the 1267 Sanctions Committee (of the UN Security Council) and other authorised bodies of the UN to take a decision on the listing of Masood Azhar (as international terrorist),” MEA spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said.

Gokhale is understood to have made attempts to convince Wang not to block a resolution to declare Azhar an international terrorist at a UN panel. China has been blocking India’s move to enlist Azhar as an international terrorist, a move supported by countries like the US, Britain and France at the UN Security Council.

This has soured China’s ties with India, where Azhar is wanted for plotting deadly terror attacks. Azhar heads the JeM, which claimed responsibility for the Pulwama terror attack in which 40 CRPF personnel were killed on February 14.

JeM is responsible for a number of terror attacks in India over the last two decades, including the one on the Parliament on December 13, 2001. There has been an increased pitch for proscribing Azhar in the aftermath of the Pulwama attack.

Last month, Beijing placed its latest “technical hold,” for the fourth time, on a US-sponsored resolution against Azhar, a move that India called “disappointing”.

“India will continue to pursue all available avenues to ensure that terrorist leaders who are involved in heinous attacks

on our citizens are brought to justice,” Kumar said. Gokhale, who was earlier India’s Ambassador to China, said both countries were working to implement what was agreed between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Wuhan summit last year.