Iron hand required to deal with terrorism, says RIC ministers

Bangalore: Foreign Ministers of India, China and Russia (RIC) on Tuesday urged the international community to deal with terrorism with an iron hand. The 9th RIC Foreign Minister's meeting also expressed concern over the continuing deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan. The joint communiqué issued after the trilateral meeting called for concerted action against terrorism, transactional crime and drug trafficking. A consensus was also reached on continuing the effort to achieve a political and diplomatic settlement of the Iran nuclear issue, the communiqué stated. The meeting felt that despite the impact of the international financial crisis, the pace of development in the three countries has improved, contributing to a faster growth among them. It said enhanced engagement among them, would strengthens their influence in a multipolar world order reflecting the diversity of world cultures and civilizations. The meeting also discussed ways in which the meetings of the business forum could be more meaningful to the business communities in the time ahead so that new opportunities may be grasped to expand trade and investment. All three ministers agreed that a trilateral dialogue in areas such as global economic governance architecture, climate change, trade policy and development cooperation would contribute greatly to global peace and prosperity and that concerted trilateral action against international terrorism, transnational crime and drug trafficking would promote stability and all-round development in today's inter-dependent world. They welcomed the decision made at the Pittsburgh Summit to designate G20 as the premier forum for international economic cooperation. They stressed that the future global economic governance should feature in balanced representation, equality and result-orientedness, and ensure the voice and representation of emerging market and developing countries. The three countries advocated that future G20 summits should be held in developed countries and emerging market and developing countries by rotation based on the principle of transparency and equity. The Ministers emphasized that one of the ultimate goals of governance structure reform for international financial institutions is equitable distribution of voting power between developed countries and developing ones. The three countries reiterated that they take the issue of climate change very seriously and that they are ready to strengthen international cooperation and make active effort to jointly tackle climate change. They reiterated that there was a need for a comprehensive reform of the United Nations with a view to make it more efficient so that it can deal with the current global challenges more effectively.