New York: India has asked international community to act as one in denying terrorists, their ideologues and financiers access to arms, funds, means of transportation of deadly goods as well as safe havens.

The first step is for the United Nations to adopt a comprehensive convention something India has been advocating for more than a decade to fight terrorism, which has grown through the last century to become one of the "leading strategic, political and development challenges," Indian Ambassador to UN Nirupam Sen told the 15-member Security Council yesterday.

Addressing the day-long Council debate on threat to international peace and security by terrorism, Sen also stressed on the need to strengthen democratic and secular forces across the world to stem the scourge.

One of the reasons the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT) is held up is that the member States have not agreed on the definition of terrorism.

But Sen said the world does not need a philosophical definition of terrorism. "Current proposals address effectively the question of offences governed by International Humanitarian Law and those governed by the Convention," he said, stressing that what is now needed is the political will to conclude the Convention.

Stating that political and socio economic programme of fundamentalists is always "deeply reactionary and exploitative," he told the Council that history teaches that to prevent fundamentalist forces from occupying space for dissent, democratic and secular forces must be strengthened and not weakened.

Source : PTI