The UN Security Council voted unanimously on Friday for a Russian-initiated resolution that seeks to expand the prosecution and extradition of terrorist groups and individuals, including Chechen separatists.
But after challenges from Islamic nations, Algeria and Pakistan, Moscow's UN ambassador, Andrei Denisov, considerably softened the original text in an effort to get the 15-0 vote.
The original Russian draft recommended a UN blacklist of individuals, groups and entities involved in terrorism, who would be subject to an asset freeze, an arms embargo and expedited extradition.
Currently such penalties apply only to al Qaeda and the Taleban.
The final text creates a working group to consider such measures without mentioning the blacklist.
The resolution calls on states to "deny safe haven and bring to justice" any person who supports or participates in the "financing, planning, preparation or commission of terrorist acts."
The anti-terror proposals were first announced by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in a speech to the UN General Assembly last month, after a spate of attacks by Chechen rebels, including the bombing of two airliners and the deadly Beslan school siege.
On Friday, Denisov said the council had to make certain that all terrorist acts against civilians were a crime "and should be given the harshest punishment" particularly in light of blasts on Thursday in three Egyptian Sinai resorts.
The measure also attempts to define terrorism or "criminal acts," something that has eluded the UN General Assembly for years in trying to draft an omnibus treaty on the subject.
While Denisov insisted the resolution was not coming up with a new definition, other diplomats said the text took a big step in that direction.
'LEGITIMATE RESISTANCE' Algeria and Pakistan, the two Islamic nations on the Security Council, opposed any wording that would exclude "legitimate resistance," the main obstacle that faced the General Assembly also.
"While we all agree that acts against civilians are terrorist acts, there is no similar consensus on what are the rights of people struggling against foreign occupation," said Pakistan's UN ambassador, Munir Akram.
The resolution calls on nations to punish "criminal acts, including against civilians, committed with intent to cause death or serious bodily injury, or taking of hostages, with the purpose to provoke a state of terror in the general public, intimidate a population or compel a government or international organisation to do or abstain from doing any act" that would be an offence in existing treaties and protocols.
Such acts, it says, "are under no circumstances justifiable by considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or other similar nature."
The resolution is co-sponsored by Spain, Britain, France, the United States, Germany and Romania.
Lavrov argued that targeting only al Qaeda and the Taleban in Security Council resolutions showed a double standard.
"Those who slaughtered children in Beslan and hijacked airplanes to attack America are creatures of the same breed," he said.
Without naming countries such as Britain, Qatar or the United States, which have given asylum to Chechen rebels, he rebuked nations for playing "geopolitical games" with the fight against terrorism.
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