China, India agree to step up cooperation on terror

India and China reached a consensus on measures to strengthen cooperation and jointly deal with growing security threat in South East Asia.

Saying that China is also concerned about the growing problem of its Xinjiang province being used as corridor to export insurgents to Syria from Pakistan, Joint Intelligence Committee chairman R.N. Ravi, who was in Beijing on September 29 for a meeting with China, told this newspaper that two high-level delegations of China would be visiting India next month to work out a mechanism to strengthen cooperation on security threats.

Describing the India-China dialogue as a major breakthrough in the field of bilateral cooperation between the two countries Mr Ravi, who had meeting with secretary-general of the Commission for Political and Legal Affairs of the Communist Party of China Central Committee Wang Yongqing, said that there was consensus between India and China that terrorism is a common enemy of the global community and strengthened counterterrorism cooperation between China and India was conducive to the interests of the people of both countries.

Rejecting reports in the media about China blocking a tributary of the Brahmaputra river in Tibet, and incursion by PLA in Arunachal Pradesh, Mr Ravi said that China was also willing to step up communication and cooperation with India in the field of counter-terrorism, so that the two sides could work together. Mr Ravi was of the view that China may have been building some dams in Tibet, but it doesn’t have any intention to block the Brahamaputra.

He said that two delegations are visiting India next month for a meeting with Union home minister Rajnath Singh.

He also informed that China has also agreed to help India in catching the insurgent leaders of Northeastern states using their frontier provinces with Myanmar for shelter. Mr Ravi was in China for a dialogue soon after the surgical strike of India in Pakistan occupied Kashmir.