BRICS 2017: Joint declaration names terror outfits for first time; Narendra Modi-Xi Jinping have 'fruitful' meet

The recently concluded BRICS Summit 2017 marked a sea-change from previous meets and spelled a positive result for India. This year’s meet was significant in two ways. One, for the first time, five other countries were invited as part of ‘BRICS Plus’ and the Xiamen declaration condemned Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad as terror outfits. China has invited Egypt, Kenya, Tajikistan, Mexico and Thailand as guest countries for the BRICS Summit. The BRICS also presented an opportunity for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese president Xi Jinping to meet on the sidelines for the first time since the Doka La standoff. While Xi called on member nations to make the international order more just, Modi called for coordinated action on counter terrorism. Speaking at the opening of the plenary session at the BRICS Summit in Xiamen, Xi called on the five nation grouping to forge unity to jointly advance solutions for international peace and development. “We need to make the international order more just and equitable. Our ever closer ties require that we five countries play more active in global governance. Without our participation, many pressing global challenges cannot be effectively resolved,” Xi told the gathering. Modi pitched for a coordinated action on counter terrorism, cyber security and disaster management. He said, India has a long tradition of partnerships with fellow developing countries, while pursuing its own aspirations for growth. He also suggested ten noble commitments through which BRICS leadership in global transformation can be achieved. The ten noble commitments suggested by Modi included creating a safer world by “organised and coordinated action on at least three issues: Counter Terrorism, Cyber Security and Disaster Management”. Other commitments suggested by the prime minister were — creating a greener world, creating an enabled world, creating an inclusive world, creating a digital world, creating a skilled world, creating a healthier world, creating an equitable world, creating a connected world and creating a harmonious world. Modi-Xi meet The highlight of BRICS however, was the Modi-Xi meet on the sidelines of the Summit. Their first substantive bilateral meet following the Doka La standoff focused on furthering peace at border areas and better ties. Foreign secretary S Jaishankar announced that after a “constructive and forward-looking” bilateral meet between Modi and Xi. The two leaders emphasised on the need to make efforts to enhance and strengthen the mutual trust between the two sides, he said, adding it was agreed that “the security and defence personnel must maintain strong contacts and cooperation and ensure that the situation which happened recently do not recur.” The two leaders met for an hour and talked about inter-governmental mechanism such as joint economic group, security group and strategic group which can help both countries move forward. [caption id=“attachment_4016059” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] Leaders of BRICS nations. PTI[/caption] Joint declaration For the first time, Pakistan-based terrorist outfits like JeM, LeT and the Haqqani network were included in the BRICS joint declaration  condemning terrorism, despite host China’s friendly relations with India’s neighbour. Defending the move to include these terror groups for the first time in the BRICS joint declaration, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said BRICS countries have “shown their concerns to the violent activities raised by these organisations”. “These organisations are all sanctioned by the UN Security Council and have a significant impact for Afghanistan issue,” Geng said. The 43-page ‘Xiamen Declaration’, adopted at the end of the five-nation BRICS plenary, expressed “concern” over the security situation in the region and the violence caused by the Taliban, Islamic State, al-Qaeda and its affiliates including Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the Haqqani network, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Hizb-ut-Tahrir. In the last two years, China has stonewalled efforts by India and then later by the US, the UK and France to declare Masood Azhar as a terrorist, stating that there is no consensus on the issue. Pakistan rejected the statement by saying, no group operated freely inside the country. “These organisations (terror groups), they have some of their remnants in Pakistan, which we’re cleaning,” defence minister Khurram Dastagir Khan told the Geo TV channel, without specifying which groups he was referring to. “But Pakistan, we reject this thing categorically, no terrorist organisation has any complete safe havens.” Four documents signed Four documents, including on economic and trade cooperation, were signed by the BRICS countries on Monday with an aim to deepen commercial ties among the grouping’s members. Apart from the action agenda on economic and trade cooperation, the three other documents signed in the presence of leaders of Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS) were action plan for innovation cooperation (2017-2020), strategic framework of BRICS customs cooperation and Memorandum of Understanding between the BRICS Business Council and the New Development Bank on Strategic Cooperation. All these instruments were aimed at giving boost to trade ties within the five-nation grouping, officials said. With inputs from agencies