China Considering India’s Request to Name Masood Azhar as Top Terrorist

Ma Xiangwu, a senior official of the Chinese Communist Party, said that they are now considering to support the ban on terrorist leader Masood Azhar.

He said, "We are considering it. We will take a decision on it soon."

The top official explained that China wants to study their position carefully as definitions of terrorism can vary in different regions.

"There are two classifications of terrorism in the world. global terrorism and regional terrorism," noted Ma. "Nevertheless, countering terrorism remains a long drawn process."

The Chinese official said, "In Taliban sanctuary, there is a China camp which has around 320 Uyghur terrorists."

Ma referred to the domestic terrorism issue when Islamabad cooperated with Beijing in its fight against the separatist groups in the autonomous region of Xinjiang.

This was a shift from China's previous position that calling Azhar a terrorist did not have enough solid evidence. China then voted against the U.N.'s resolution.

India asked China to reconsider their vote because the entire international community already studied the well-documented actions of Azhar and have decided to support the U.N.

Indian Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar said, "On the issue of the 1267 Committee sanctions on Masood Azhar, we again explained to them the rationale for that application and pointed out today that this was really being pursued by other countries, not by India alone."

"The fact that other countries were pressing this application showed that there was broad international support for this and concerns about Masood Azhar's activities," he added.

India is pursuing the call to classify Azhar as a terrorist because they believe that he is behind the terror attack on the Pathankot air base. Seven security personnel were killed.

Azhar is also blamed for the terror attack on the Uri army camp in Jammu and Kashmir last September.

Pakistan has been protecting Azhar and banned him from leaving the country.