“Allowing safe harbours for terrorism and overlooking state sponsorship is becoming increasingly dangerous,” EAM Jaishankar

While reflecting on key issues before the US administration, including the challenges of terrorism, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said creating a global consensus on the issue must be the priority.

“For too long, it (terrorism) has been treated as a problem of only those directly impacted. But we know full well how seamless the world of terrorism really is. Allowing safe harbours for terrorism and overlooking state sponsorship is becoming increasingly dangerous with each passing day,” EAM Jaishankar said in his key note address at the 14th annual conference of Institute of National Security Studies, Israel on Wednesday.

“In a more capable and technology-driven world, these threats have only multiplied further. Creating a global consensus on this issue must be a priority,” he added.

With regard to the US and its power and influence in the world, the EAM said the former has been actively and continuously engaged in commitments abroad for almost two decades, yet “challenges of the world will not go away and the US, as a pre-eminent power, will have to grapple with them.”

He said like the rest of the world, the US too has been coming to terms with the rebalancing of the global power distribution. However, he maintained the US administration would survey the landscape that it has inherited and respond to the contemporary requirements. But “nowhere have the changes been sharper than in Asia.”

Highlighting changes that West Asia or the Middle East has witnessed in recent months, he said the Abraham Accords have opened up possibilities that could not have been imagined earlier.

“But, lasting solutions do have to be found for the perennial challenges. The international community has vital stakes in the stability and prosperity of this region,” the EAM said.

The priorities of the Joe Biden administration would obviously help shape a new global agenda, the minister said, adding that at the heart of that should be a recognition of the indivisibility of our existence, and therefore, of our challenges.

Climate change, pandemics and terrorism would surely rank foremost among them, Jaishankar asserted.

Underlining that strengthening multilateralism is also imperative if such issues are to be addressed effectively, he said reforming the architecture and even the working of international organisations is in our common interest.

“Where climate change is concerned, an American return to upholding global commitments will be widely welcomed,” he said.

India reflects both its own beliefs and world opinion today as it ramps up its renewable energy targets, expands its forest cover, enhances its bio-diversity and focusses on effective water utilisation, EAM Jaishankar said.

It has also led two major international initiatives, the International Solar Alliance and the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure, he pointed out.

A stronger consensus on seriously addressing the climate change challenges has obviously its own implications, Jaishankar said.