Manila: India and Philippines held the second meeting of the Joint Working Group (JWG) on Counter Terrorism in Manila, discussing emerging regional and global terrorism landscape.
During the two-day meeting held in Manila which ended on Thursday, the two sides spoke about various wide range of areas of cooperation in counter terrorism, law enforcement, judicial cooperation and capacity building.
“Both sides unequivocally and strongly condemned terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, including cross- border terrorism. They further condemned the heinous terrorist attack on 22 April 2025 in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir, India and the terror incident on 10 November 2025 near the Red Fort, New Delhi. The Philippines side reiterated its solidarity and support with India in the fight against terrorism,” read a statement issued by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).
The meeting was co-chaired by Vinod Bahade, Joint Secretary (Counter Terrorism) in MEA and Marshall Louis M Alferez, Assistant Secretary of the Asian and Pacific Affairs in the Philippines’ Department of Foreign Affairs.
“Recognizing the need for enhancing cooperation for effectively countering the current and emerging challenges to counter terrorism, the two sides underlined strengthening cooperation in timely information sharing and concerted actions to counter the use of new and emerging technology for terrorist purposes and terror financing. They further discussed ways to strengthen cooperation in countering radicalization and violent extremism conducive to terrorism,” the MEA statement added.
The two sides stressed the need for strengthening international cooperation to combat terrorism in a comprehensive and sustained manner and reaffirmed their commitment to strengthen cooperation in the multilateral fora, including the United Nations, Financial Action Task Force (FATF), APG and ARF.
During the visit, the Indian delegation also met senior officials of the National Security Council and the Anti-Money Laundering Council of the Philippines.
The officials of the two nations agreed to hold the next meeting of the Joint Working Group in India on a mutually convenient date.
(IANS)
