New Delhi: Issuing a stern warning to Pakistan yet again, Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Bipin Rawat on Thursday said that diplomatic isolation of any country sponsoring terrorism is very important as he called for collective action to tackle the global menace.
Gen Rawat was speaking along with other world leaders at Raisina dialogue organised by India’s influential think-tank Observer Research Foundation (ORF).
“The future of terrorism is going to be as dirty as conventional combat. Terrorism is here to stay, so long as there are states who are sponsoring it,” General Rawat said.
CDS Rawat said that terrorism will not end till the time there are countries which provide funding to it.
“War on terror will continue, and we will have to live with it until we get to the root of it,” CDS Rawat added, saying that ”the best remedy to put an end to it is diplomatic isolation.”
Calling for strict action against countries harbouring terror operators, General Rawat said, ”We’ve to bring an end to terrorism and that can only happen the way Americans started after 9/11, they said let’s go on a spree on the global war on terror. To do that you have to isolate the terrorists, anybody who is sponsoring terrorism has to be taken to task.”
“We need to isolate terrorism – you cannot have countries which are partnering with you in the global war on terror with you and are yet sponsoring proxies and terrorism. For this, international messaging has to go – like blacklisting in FATF – it was a good measure,” General Rawat said.
Arguing that terrorism was going to stay in the world as long as states were going to use it against other states, he said it was important to prevent states from using terrorism as a “proxy war”.
“The only way to deal with it was what the US did post 9/11,” he said, adding that the war against terror was necessary.
However, now a peace deal with Taliban is required, Gen. Rawat said.
“It must be a negotiated peace deal so that the Taliban stops using terrorism,” he added. Hinting that the US should maintain its presence in Afghanistan, the CDS said that though Afghan security forces are now equipped to fight back terror groups in Afghanistan but they still need support.
The newly appointed CDS officially confirmed that India has shifted its stance on Taliban. India has traditionally been opposed to the Pakistan-backed Taliban in Afghanistan. Thousands of Afghans were given refuge in India when they fled the country due to oppression and terrorism of the Taliban regime. India is in alignment with the democratically elected government in Kabul that the Taliban remains supported by Pakistan.