UNSC ends imbroglio over chairs of terrorism committees

United Nations, June 4 Ending an imbroglio over leadership of United Nations Security Council panels dealing with terrorism, Algeria has been appointed chair of the 1267 Sanctions Committee that has been dealing with Pakistan-based terrorist groups like Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM).

According to the list of chairs of the 24 committees and groups released on Tuesday, Denmark has been appointed head of the influential Counterterrorism Committee (CTC).

Pakistan, which held up the appointments for five months with its demands to head the Counterterrorism and 1267 committees, was kept away from those two panels and given, as a compromise, the chair of the 1988 Taliban Committee, which effectively deals with Afghanistan, now run by the Taliban.

Guyana and Russia will be the co-chairs of the committee.

Consensus governs many of the functions of the Council, and taking advantage of it, elected member Pakistan was able to block the appointment of the chairs of the committees until a compromise was struck.

Diplomatic sources said the Western countries on the Council opposed Pakistan becoming the chair of any of the main terrorism-related panels -- the CTC and the 1988 and 1267.

Those countries pointed out that Islamabad had a conflict of interest because it harboured terrorist organisations like the LeT and JeM, and its leaders, and had contentious relations with the Taliban ruling neighbouring Afghanistan.

Among other appointments, South Korea heads the Peacekeeping Working Group, Panama the 1540 Non-Proliferation Committee, and Slovenia the 2231 Iran Committee and also act as the facilitator for the nuclear deal, which may get a second life under US President Donald Trump's initiative.

Nearly halfway into the year, the compromise was struck with Pakistan to allow the panels that had been leaderless to function effectively.

Pakistan was also given the vice chairmanship of the CTC along with Russia and France.

Algeria was also appointed chair of the 1566 Counterterrorism Working Group, which was set up under a 2004 Council resolution to recommend measures against terrorist groups not covered by other panels.

In other appointments, Pakistan was made a co-chair with Greece of the Informal Working Group on General Issues of Sanctions, which makes recommendations on making sanctions more effective, but has no direct say on imposing or lifting sanctions.

It also was made co-chair of the Informal Working Group on Documentation and Procedural Matters.

The 1267 Sanctions Committee, which gets its name from the Council's resolution and deals with the affiliates of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State that covers Pakistan-based terrorist outfits like LeT and JeM.

Heading the 1988 Taliban Sanctions Committee, which is named for the number of the 2011 Council resolution on sanctions against the Taliban, will allow it to exert influence on Afghanistan.

When India was on the Council during 2020 to 2022, it headed the Counter-Terrorism Committee and India's Permanent Representative to UN, Ruchira Kamboj, even arranged for the panel to meet in Mumbai at the sites of the 26/11 terror attacks by Pakistan-based terrorists.

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