China on Tuesday reiterated that it had not shifted from its stance of refusing to recognise Masood Azhar as an international terrorist, despite the marked improvement in New Delhi-Beijing security ties following the Wuhan summit in April.

“As to India’s request for the listing of Masood Azhar, we have already stated our position many times,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said in response to a question. The spokesperson did not elaborate on her comment.

China’s repeated obstruction to the listing of Azhar, the head of the banned Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad group, in the UN terror log has been an irritant in India-China ties.

But New Delhi-Beijing ties were uplifted across the board by the Wuhan summit in April between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Referring to the signing of a security agreement on Monday during the New Delhi visit of Zhao Kezhi, Chinese Minister of Public Security, Ms. Hua linked it to the spirit of the Wuhan summit. “Now (the) two countries enjoy sound development of bilateral relations. President Xi and Prime Minister Modi held an informal meeting in Wuhan this April,” she said.

She described the “cooperation treaty” signed on Monday as “very important in terms of advancing our law enforcement and security cooperation.”

“We believe this cooperation on security and law enforcement will help us to combat crimes as it will provide more institutional and systematic guarantee in this regard,” Ms. Hua observed.

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