India issues demarche to China after it put 'technical hold' on proposal to list JeM chief Masood Azhar as global terrorist at the UN

China blocked the proposal to list Azhar as a global terrorist because "conditions" had not been met yet for it to back India's proposal.

India issued a demarche against China on Thursday and also slammed the Chinese government for blocking a proposal supported by the United States of America (US) to list Pathankot terror attack mastermind and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) chief Masood Azhar as a global terrorist at the United Nations (UN).

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said in Beijing that China blocked the proposal to list Azhar as a global terrorist to allow "relevant parties" to reach a consensus.

India hit out at China saying that the Chinese government would have a consensus if it changed its position. External Affairs Ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup, at a press briefing, said that the matter had been taken up with the Chinese ambassador and that a similar demarche was sent to China.

Adding that the proposal was moved by three permanent members of the UN Security Council -- US, United Kingdom (UK) and France -- Swarup said: "It is our understanding that this was a classic counter-terrorism proposal meant to proscribe a dreaded terrorist leader, Masood Azhar, whose organisation, the Jaish-e-Mohammed, has already been proscribed by the UN 1267 Committee. We do not view this as a bilateral matter between India and Pakistan but as an issue of global counter terrorism. We hope that eventually China will also come around to accepting this view. Obviously, if there is a change in the Chinese position, there will be consensus also.''

Swarup added that the proposal was submitted on January 19 this year after four new members were inducted into the UN Security Council.

India's demarche to China came a day after the latter put a "technical hold" on the proposal saying that there was no consensus over it after having scuttled India's attempt since 2016 to list Azhar as a global terrorist at the UN thereby imposing a global ban on the terrorist.

The Chinese government said that "conditions" have not been met for it to back India's proposal.

"We put out technical hold after we had several rounds of consultations with India. We hope relevant parties have enough time to consult each other to make sure that the decision made by the Committee will be based on consensus," Kang told reporters in Beijing.