BRICS countries adopt Counter Terrorism Strategy

November 18, 2020

On November 17, 2020, during the 12^th BRICS Summit, the members adopted counter terrorism strategy. The main objective of the strategy is to deal with terrorism.

Key Highlights

The Counter Terrorism Strategy is based on the following principles

Respect sovereignty of participating countries
Commit to international laws
Recognize coordinating role of the United Nations
Consider member countries’ priorities and national interests
Adopt comprehensive approach to combat terrorism

Goals

The goals adopted in the strategy are as follows

Implement United Nations Security Council resolutions.
To broaden counter terrorism operations with G20 and FATF
To counter global threats based on UN Charter
To increase information sharing about terrorist organisations as listed by the UNSC

Counter Terrorism Working Group

The BRIS Counter Terrorism Working Group implement the strategy. The major sub-working groups of the group are terrorist financing, capacity-building, countering radicalization, use of internet for terrorist purposes and issues of foreign terrorist fighters.

Brasilia Declaration

The BRICS countries adopted the Brasilia Declaration at the 11^th BRICS summit (2019) that was held in Brasilia. The declaration condemned terrorism in all its forms. According to the declaration, the two main pillars of terrorism are ideology and finances. The Brasilia Declaration focuses on the following

Key issues such as anti-money laundering and countering financial terrorism
To reaffirm the importance of establishing legal frameworks
The declaration affirms that BRICS nations will not give legitimacy to any countries spreading terrorism. China’s compliance to this part of declaration is important to India because of China’s closeness to Pakistan.

Terrorism in India

Among the BRICS countries, India is the most affected by terrorism. ISIS is the new emerging threat in India as several youngsters are joining ISIS modules.