France, India in same boat: Fabius

Vowing to continue its “strong” response against perpetrators of Paris attack, France on Friday said India was on the “same boat” in fighting terrorism and will cooperate with each other in dealing with the “major” challenge facing the world. French foreign minister Laurent Fabius, who arrived in New Delhi a week after the deadly terror attack in Paris, met PM Narendra Modi and discussed ways to tackle the menace effectively, on a day terrorists held 170 people hostage at a hotel in the west African nation of Mali which included Indian and French nationals. “I want to say that France is grateful for tremendous support it has received from the international community, including Indian friends. The attackers will not go unpunished and our response is and will be strong,” Mr Fabius said while ruling out any possibility of negotiations with terror groups.

The visiting minister, here to hold deliberations with India on the preparations ahead of the crucial Paris climate summit, said fighting against terrorism and combating climate change are the two major challenges of the 21st century.

Appreciating India’s position on fighting terror, he said, “We have a good cooperation with our Indian friends on this. I was discussing it this morning with Prime Minister Modi. We shall develop our cooperation... We are in the same boat.”

He said Modi once again expressed solidarity with people of France, who are grappling with the trauma of the ghastly attack.

Calling for concerted global efforts to take on Islamic State, he said France has moved a resolution at the United Nations for effective action against the terror outfit that had claimed responsibility for the Paris attack.

French has resolved to hunt down terrorist outfit Islamic State and has been pounding its bases across Syria by aerial strikes.

On the Mali hotel attack, he said he was in touch with the French authorities and a crisis unit has been formed at the French Embassy there.

“Those people who says that they are fighting for freedom... In fact they are murderers and they want to kill everybody who do not share their domination and ideology. They use religion whereas the religion says the contrary.

“I think their promised ideal life in reality consists of killing people and being killed. Therefore, it is not possible to negotiate with them, because all they want is to kill everybody who do not accept their domination and therefore we have to fight them nationally and internationally,” Fabius said at a joint press conference with Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar.