In a significant move forward from the Goa BRICS declaration, Beijing has signed off on New Delhi’s initiative to name two Pakistan-based terrorist groups, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, in the Xiamen declaration.
China has been expressing “concern” on the security situation in the region and violence caused by these outfits.
This is the first time that a BRICS declaration has named these terrorist groups, although the Heart of Asia declaration in Amritsar, a grouping which includes China and Pakistan, also named them in December 2016.
But there has been no visible change in China’s policy on the ground so far.
Along with the Haqqani network, Taliban and Islamic State, the Xiamen declaration also named the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, a Muslim separatist group founded by militant Uighurs, members of the Turkic-speaking ethnic group in northwest China’s Xinjiang province.
The Xiamen declaration also deplored all terrorist attacks worldwide, including attacks in BRICS countries, and condemned terrorism in all its forms and manifestations wherever committed, by whomsoever.
It underlined that there could be no justification whatsoever for any act of terrorism.
