#WATCH: EAM Sushma Swaraj says at #UNGA, "9/11 ka mastermind to maara gaya, kintu 26/11 ka mastermind Hafiz Saeed aaj bhi khula ghum raha hai. Ralliyan karta hai, chunav ladwata hai, sareaam Bharat ko dhamkiya deta hai" pic.twitter.com/wkn5OOColn
— ANI (@ANI) September 29, 2018
In a strong attack against Pakistan, India told the UN General Assembly on Saturday that its neighbour’s commitment to terrorism as an instrument of official policy has not abated one bit.
In her address to the General Debate of the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly in New York, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj described terrorism as an “existential threat” to humanity.
She criticised Pakistan strongly for glorifying terrorists and killers.
“In our case, terrorism is bred not in some faraway land, but across our border. Our neighbour’s expertise is not restricted to spawning grounds for terrorism; it is also an expert in trying to mask malevolence with verbal duplicity,” said Swaraj in a speech that focused on cross-border terrorism.“Pakistan glorifies killers; it refuses to see the blood of innocents,” added Swaraj in remarks alluding to the postage stamps released by Islamabad this year in July commemorating among others Burhan Wani.
India had cited killing of security personnel, including the throat being slit of a BSF jawan as well as the release of the stamps when it called off talks with Pakistan within 24 hours of accepting it.
However, Islamabad had argued that both the reasons for cancellation of talks happened prior to their announcement by New Delhi.
“We are accused of sabotaging the process of talks. This is a complete lie. We believe that talks are only rational means to resolve the most complex of disputes. Talks with Pakistan have begun many times. If they stopped, it was only because of their behaviour,” said Swaraj.
Pakistani Foreign Minister S M Qureshi in an interaction with a prominent think tank said that PM Modi and his government developed cold feet after accepting the offer of talks along UNGA sidelines because of “domestic and electoral compulsions”.
India and Pakistan have not had structured official dialogue since 2012. While accepting the talks, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson went at length to clarify it would only be a meeting and not resumption of any dialogue.
Swaraj also cited the case of Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the UN Maleeha Lodhi displaying some photographic proof of “human rights violations” by India in Kashmir last year which later turned out to be from another country.
In her fourth consecutive address to the General Assembly on behalf of the BJP government, Swaraj also urged the need for the global community to deliver on a long pending Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT).
“In 1996, India proposed a draft document on CCIT at the United Nations. Till today, that draft has remained a draft, because we cannot agree on a common language. On the one hand, we want to fight terrorism; on the other, we cannot define it.”
The minister also broadly spoke about the sustainable development goals as well as India’s commitment to climate change, with a veiled message for the Trump administration.
“If we have to save the world from the adverse effects of climate change, then developed nations must lift the deprived with financial and technical resources,” she said.
