India on Friday said it was concerned about possible linkages of terrorists to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in its neighbourhood and emphasised the need for greater international cooperation to counter this threat.
"International terrorism and the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction are just two of the most urgent challenges," External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said in New Delhi while releasing the book One Policy -- Challenges and Opportunities of the Foreign Services Institute.
Mukherjee said the world had of late seen the emergence of radically new terrorist structures that are designed to function as relatively independent cells, thus making the task of detecting them more difficult.
"The possible linkages of terrorists with proliferation of WMDs are a cause of even greater worry. India is particularly concerned by these developments," he said.
"Our neighbourhood has seen the manifestaion of all these problems, which, coupled with unstable political conditions, pose grave risks for our security," he said.
Mukherjee said greater international cooperation would be needed in the years ahead to combat these menaces and national capacities would have to be built up to better anticipate "the crises of tomorrow".
