India, EU negotiating reference to Uri attack in joint statement

Officials said that the two sides are likely to announce strengthening of institutional linkages between Indian agencies and their European Union counterparts, including Europol, for closer interaction and cooperation in counter-terrorism. They are also expected to identify relevant training programmes for capacity building of individuals on both sides working in the sphere of countering terrorism and violent extremism.

Government sources said that while counter-terrorism arrangements may be established by and through individual countries, the EU that brings together 28 States can articulate a common position on this. “There are concrete levers that are available to use to signal that resort to terrorism as state policy is not acceptable, and the two sides will discuss using some of them after developing an understanding,” a source said.

During the 13th India-EU summit in Brussels in March last year, which Modi visited just days after the terror attack in the Belgian capital, the two sides had condemned the attacks in Brussels and Paris, Pathankot and Gurdaspur. While also recalling the 2008 Mumbai terror attack, the leaders had called for perpetrators of these attacks to be brought to justice. They had called for decisive actions against ISIL (Da’esh), Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Hizbul Mujahideen, the Haqqani Network and other internationally active terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda and its affiliates.

On Friday, the two sides will also discuss domestic cyber policy landscape, cyber threats and mitigation, Internet governance, mechanism on bilateral cooperation and possible cooperation at various international fora and regional fora. They will also discuss possible collaboration for the 5th Global Conference on Cyber Space to be held in New Delhi from November 23-24.