Quad ministers demand bringing Pahalgam terrorists to justice, renew commitment to counterterrorism

Washington, July 2 (IANS) Renewing their commitment to work together to fight terrorism, the Quad foreign ministers have demanded that all those responsible for the "reprehensible" Pahalgam attack be immediately brought to justice and countries concerned cooperate with the authorities.

In a joint statement after their meeting on Tuesday, they said, "We call for the perpetrators, organisers, and financiers of this reprehensible act to be brought to justice without any delay and urge all UN Member States, in accordance with their obligations under international law and relevant UNSCRs (Security Council Resolutions), to cooperate actively with all relevant authorities in this regard."

"The Quad unequivocally condemns all acts of terrorism and violent extremism in all its forms and manifestations, including cross-border terrorism, and renews our commitment to counterterrorism cooperation," the statement said.

External Affairs Minister (EAM) S. Jaishankar, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Foreign Ministers Penny Wong of Australia and Takeshi Iwaya of Japan representing the major democracies of the Indo-Pacific region met for their second ministerial meeting of the year.

They said, "We condemn in the strongest terms the terrorist attack in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir, on April 22, 2025, which claimed the lives of 25 Indian nationals and one Nepali citizen, while injuring several others."

The statement did not name any country while calling for bringing the perpetrators of the massacre to justice, but the nation was obvious because The Resistance Front, which carried out the attack, is an arm of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is sheltered by Pakistan.

Before the ministers met, Jaishankar said, "India has every right to defend its people against terrorism, and we will exercise that right."

"We expect our quad partners to understand and appreciate that," he emphasised.

The top diplomats said they looked forward to the Quad summit to be hosted later this year by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which will be attended by US President Donald Trump and Prime Ministers Anthony Albanese of Australia and Shigeru Ishiba of Japan.

The ministers said that they "plan to launch the Quad Ports of the Future Partnership in Mumbai this year."

"To ensure the Quad's enduring impact," the ministers announced, "a new, ambitious, and strong agenda focused on four key areas" that will "sharpen the Quad's ability to leverage our resources to address the region's most pressing challenges."

The four areas are maritime and transnational security, economic prosperity and security, critical and emerging technology, and humanitarian assistance and emergency response.

While their joint statement repeatedly spoke of threats to countries in the region from the use of force and coercion by China, they did not name it.

"We remain seriously concerned about the situation in the East China Sea and South China Sea," the statement said listing the various actions, including "unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo by force or coercion ... dangerous and provocative actions, including interference with offshore resource development, the repeated obstruction of the freedoms of navigation and overflight, and the dangerous maneuvers by military aircraft and coast guard and maritime militia vessels, especially the unsafe use of water cannons and ramming or blocking actions in the South China Sea."

While China was not mentioned, it had carried out all those actions against the Philippines, Vietnam, and South Korea, and it has been involved in disputes with Malaysia over offshore oil drilling.

"These actions threaten peace and stability in the region", they said. "We are seriously concerned by the militarisation of disputed features."

The ministers expressed concern over the disruptions to the supply chain, particularly of critical minerals and said it was important to diversify supplies.

They announced a concrete measure to deal with this problem: "We are launching today the Quad Critical Minerals Initiative, an ambitious expansion of our partnership to strengthen economic security and collective resilience by collaborating to secure and diversify critical minerals supply chains."

To strengthen the Quad's ability to carry out relief in natural disasters -- a mission that gave initial shape to the group -- the ministers said they plan to host the first Quad Indo-Pacific Logistics Network field training exercise this year.

It aims "to strengthen shared airlift capacity and leverage our collective logistics strengths to respond to natural disasters more rapidly and efficiently, providing support for regional partners," the statement said.

They condemned North Korea's missile and nuclear weapons programmes and demanded that it follow United Nations Security Council resolutions and end them.

They also expressed "grave concern over North Korea's malicious cyber activity, including cryptocurrency theft and use of workers abroad to fund North Korea's unlawful weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs."

Pyongyang has sent its citizens to fight on behalf of Russia in Ukraine.

Closer to home, the ministers said they were "deeply concerned by the worsening crisis in Myanmar and its impact on the region."

They called on the military regime and all groups involved "to implement, extend and broaden ceasefire measures."

--IANS

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