China defends blocking US’ proposal to impose UN ban on Masood

TIL Desk/World/Beijing-China today defended its decision to block the US’ proposal in the UN for designating Pathankot attack mastermind and JeM chief Masood Azhar as a global terrorist, saying the “conditions” have not yet been met for Beijing to back the move.

Replying to a spate of questions on China putting a technical hold for the third time on attempts to list Azhar as a global terrorist, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a media briefing here that Beijing resorted to this move to allow the “relevant parties” to reach a consensus.

“Last year 1,267 Committee of the UN Security Council discussed the issue regarding listing Masood (Azhar) in the sanctions list. There were different views with no consensus reached,” Lu said. “As for the submission once again by relevant countries to list him in the sanctions list, I would say the conditions are not yet met for the Committee to reach a decision,” he said.

“China has put the request on technical hold, to allow the relevant parties more time to consult with each other. This is also in line with rules of the relevant resolutions of the Security Council and the rules of the discussion of the Committee,” he said.