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The 17th meeting of the India-France Joint Working Group (JWG) on Counter Terrorism (CT) was held in Paris, France, on Thursday, where the two countries assessed counter-terrorism challenges, discussed bilateral and multilateral cooperation and broadened the scope of the dialogue.
They condemned the dastardly Pahalgam terror attack and also exchanged views on the current threat assessment in the respective countries, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in an official statement. As per the statement, the Indian delegation was led by Joint Secretary (CT), Ministry of External Affairs of the Republic of India, KD Dewal, and the French delegation by Olivier Caron, French Counter-Terrorism Ambassador. Both sides condemned the dastardly terror attack on innocent civilians on April 22 in Pahalgam and also exchanged views on the current threat assessment in the respective countries, including State-sponsored cross-border terrorism, activities of terrorists in the respective regions and the terror threat in the Middle East. India and France also assessed the counter terrorism challenges, including combating extremism and radicalisation and the threat posed by the use of new technologies by terrorists. As per the official statement, the discussion on bilateral and multilateral cooperation focused on intensifying capacity-building measures through training and exercises. The two sides discussed cooperation in the UN, FATF and NMFT. Notably, the two sides further discussed broadening the scope of India-France CT dialogue to include organised crimes; combating online propaganda as a focused bilateral effort; and exchanging information and sharing of experience on matters of mutual concern and interest, including cyber-related threats. During the 16th meeting, which was held in India last year, MEA, in a previous statement, had noted that India and France had exchanged views on the terrorist threats in their respective regions, including State-sponsored, cross-border terrorism in South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, besides terror activities in the Af-Pak region. The recent statement mentioned that the two sides agreed to hold the 18th Meeting of the Joint Working Group in India on a mutually convenient date. (ANI)
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