TOI Correspondent from Washington: Without naming any country, India’s foreign minister S Jaishankar warned the United Nations on Saturday that “those who condone nations that sponsor terror will find it comes back to bite them”.In his address before the UN General Assembly, Jaishankar implicitly took aim at Pakistan, calling it an epicentre of global terrorism and pointing out that for decades, major international terrorist attacks are traced back to that one country and UN lists of terrorists are replete with its nationals.The most recent example of its cross-border barbarism was the murder of innocent tourists in Pahalgam earlier this year, following which, he said, India “exercised its right to defend its people and brought its organisers and perpetrators to justice”. Since terrorism is a shared threat, he called for much deeper international cooperation.”When nations openly declare terrorism a state policy, when terror hubs operate on an industrial scale, when terrorists are publicly glorified, then such actions must be unequivocally condemned,” he told the UN body. This is same Pak that shielded terror outfit at UNSC: India representative Earlier on Friday, India lampooned Pakistan’s claim that it had won the recent conflict with India, telling the UN that “if destroyed runways and burnt-out hangars look like victory… Pakistan is welcome to enjoy it”.New Delhi asserted that it was Pakistani military that “pleaded with us directly for a cessation to the fighting”, and if Islamabad is sincere about peace, it must “immediately shut down all terrorist camps and handover to us terrorists wanted in India”. In a sharp riposte to Pakistan PM Shehbaz Sharif’s “absurd theatrics”, which included pretensions of seeking peace and presenting the country as a bulwark of terrorism in his speech, India’s first secretary Petal Gahlot reminded the UN that Pakistan sheltered Osama bin Laden for a decade even while pretending to partner in the war against terrorism.As is customary in recent years, India fielded a junior diplomat to lance Pakistan’s claims as the two countries resumed their war of words at UN. “A country long steeped in the tradition of deploying and exporting terrorism has no shame in advancing the most ludicrous narratives to that end,” Gahlot said while exercising New Delhi’s right to reply to Pakistan PM’s speech.Gahlot also reminded the UN that “this is the very same Pakistan which, at the UNSC, shielded ‘The Resistance Front’,” a Pakistan-sponsored terror outfit that carried out the Pahalgam massacre where Hindus were identified by their religion and butchered. The carnage led to India’s retaliatory strikes against terrorist camps in Pakistan. “The truth is that as in the past, Pakistan is responsible for a terrorist attack on innocent civilians in India. We have exercised the right to defend our people against such actions and have brought the organisers and perpetrators to justice,” Gahlot said.The Indian diplomat also asserted New Delhi’s “longstanding national position” that there is no room for any third party in mediating outstanding issues between India and Pakistan, rejecting Islamabad’s effort to draw the US and other nations into the dispute. After claims by US President Trump that he brought about a truce between the two sides during the recent war and his tentative efforts to mediate, Washington has now reverted to its position that matters need to be resolved bilaterally.Earlier, Sharif pleaded in his speech that Pakistan’s “sacrifices” as a “bulwark against terrorism” must be respected and appreciated because “had these terrorists not been encountered by us, they would have been roaming in the streets of New York, London, and the Far East”, unwittingly reminding the UN that Pakistan terrorists are indeed doing so.Aside from Ramzi Yousef, Khalid Shaikh Mohd and Osama bin Laden, who were responsible for the two WTC bombings in 1993 and 2001, and who sheltered in Pakistan, Faisal Shahzad, son of a Pakistani air vice-marshal, was convicted of the 2010 Times Square car bombing a few blocks from the UN. Pakistanis and Pakistani-origin terrorists also carried out massacres from San Bernardino, California, to London, to Mumbai, a record its patrons have glossed over.Gahlot, a popular diplomat who is also an accomplished singer, lit into Pakistan in a brief retort that mocked Pakistan PM Sharif’s reference to “Hindutva-based extremism”, saying it is “ironic that a country which wallows in hate, bigotry and intolerance should preach to this assembly on matters of faith”. Gahlot also asserted that where terrorism is concerned, India is “making it clear that there will be no distinction between the terrorists and their sponsors. Both will be held accountable.” Nor will New Delhi allow terrorism to be practised under the cover of nuclear blackmail, she said. Go to Source
