India, UAE to combat radicalisation

New Delhi and Abu Dhabi on Thursday discussed steps to check radicalisation and deal with terror threats from transnational organisations, even as they conferred on how to enhance bilateral trade and investment at the 11th India-UAE Joint Commission Meeting here.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, who co-chaired the meeting with her UAE counterpart Sheikh Al-Nahyan, said that India and the UAE had emerged as strong voices against terrorism and the rejection of extremism was articulated by the two sides in the joint statement issued during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the UAE.

“We should work together for the early adoption of India’s proposed Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT) at the United Nations,” she said in a statement.

Responding to a question on whether the UAE supported India’s position at the U.N., Anil Wadhwa, Secretary (East), said: “The UAE would like to reach a conclusion on the Convention, they are supportive of it, and they have assured us that they will find the ways and means of encouraging others also to work towards its finalisation.”

India has been pushing for a speedy adoption of the CCIT that aims at arriving at a global agreement on the definition of terrorism itself, but the move has been blocked by several countries, including Pakistan.

At Thursday’s meeting, the two sides also discussed the issue of pending extradition requests and judicial requests for seeking information on criminal cases.

To buffer the existing trade and investment ties, India and the UAE signed five MoUs in the areas of telecommunications, tourism, higher education and scientific research; specifications and measures for cooperation between the respective telecom regulatory authorities and also between the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and the Federation of the UAE Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

Mr. Wadhwa said the two sides discussed subjects under seven sub-committees in areas like trade and commerce, investments, energy, petrochemicals, defence, security and combating crime, immigration and Indian community-related issues and arrived at agreements to enhance our cooperation in these areas.

Labour-related issues, including conditions of payments, illegal holding of passports, model contracts, transfers of Indian labour from other countries were also discussed as was the issue of plugging gaps to prevent money laundering. The two sides agreed to increase the bilateral trade by 60 per cent over the next five years.