Sep 23, 2017 9:13 pm (IST)

If we cannot agree to define our enemy, how can we fight together?: Sushma Swaraj at the 72nd United Nations General Assembly session on Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism.

Although India proposed a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT) as early as in 1996, yet two decades later the United Nations has not been able to agree upon a definition of terrorism, she rued.

"We have been the oldest victims of this terrible and even traumatic terrorism. When we began articulating about this menace, many of the world s big powers dismissed this as a law and order issue. Now they know better. The question is: what do we do about it?" she asked.

"We must all introspect and ask ourselves whether our talk is anywhere close to the action we take. We all condemn this evil, and piously resolve to fight it in all our declaratory statements. The truth is that these have become rituals," she said. "The fact is that when we are required to fight and destroy this enemy, the self-interest of some leads them towards duplicity," Swaraj said.