External Affairs Minister S Jaishaknar will take part in the UNSC Open Debate on Tuesday. The open debate on “International Cooperation in combating terrorism 20 years after the adoption of 1373” will be the first time that EAM shall be making an intervention in the UNSC after India assumed membership in the beginning of this year.

UN Security Council Resolution 1373 was passed in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on the US. Setting the bedrock of the Council’s action in the field of Counter-Terrorism, the resolution called on States to implement a number of measures aiming at enhancing their legal and institutional capacity to prevent and counter terrorist threats, including by criminalizing terrorist acts, ensuring that terrorists are brought to justice and denying them safe havens and financial support.

The Resolution also called on States to work together urgently to prevent and suppress terrorist acts, including through increased cooperation and full implementation of the relevant international conventions relating to terrorism.

Resolution 1373 also established the Counter-Terrorism Committee as a subsidiary body of the Security Council in charge of monitoring its implementation and called upon all States to report to the Committee.

The mandate of the CTC and of its Executive Directorate continued to expand with the strengthening of the international Counter-Terrorism framework. India shall be chairing the CTC in 2022 and will be its Vice-Chair in 2021.

Since India has become a member of the UNSC it has also got an opportunity to chair three important subsidiary bodies of the Security Council the Taliban sanctions committee, the counter-terrorism committee, and the Libya sanctions committee.

India will chair the Counterterrorism Committee in 2022, which also coincides with the 75th Anniversary of India’s Independence. In a video message earlier Tirumurti has said, “The chairing of this Committee has a special resonance for India, which has not only been at the forefront of fighting terrorism, especially cross-border terrorism but has also been one of its biggest victims,”.Othman Jerandi, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Tunisia will preside over the event.