September 26, 2016
Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj began her closely watched 18-minute speech at the United Nation's General Assembly or UNGA today not with an attack on Pakistan, but by pledging India's commitment to sustainable development and to eradicating poverty.
September 26, 2016
Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj began her closely watched 18-minute speech at the United Nation's General Assembly or UNGA today not with an attack on Pakistan, but by pledging India's commitment to sustainable development and to eradicating poverty.
She reserved the latter part of her address for a blistering response to Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's address at the UNGA last week, in which he had focused on Kashmir and glorified Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist Burhan Wani.
The confession of Bahadur Ali, a terrorist captured by Indian forces, was "living proof of Pakistan's complicity in cross-border terror. But when confronted with such evidence, Pakistan remains in denial. It persists in the belief that such attacks will enable it to obtain the territory it covets," Ms Swaraj said, also stating, "My firm advice to Pakistan is: abandon this dream."
Spearheading India's response to the terrorist attack on an Army base in Jammu and Kashmir's Uri in which 18 soldiers were killed last week, Ms Swaraj called for the isolation of Pakistan, saying "nations that still speak the language of terrorism, that nurture it, peddle it, and export it," have no place in the international community and must be identified and held to account.
"These nations, in which UN designated terrorists roam freely, lead processions and deliver their poisonous sermons of hate with impunity, are as culpable as the very terrorists they harbour. Such countries should have no place in the comity of nations," the minister said.
Terrorists, she said, did not "own banks or weapons factories, so let us ask the real question: who finances these terrorists, who arms them and provides sanctuaries?"
Afghanistan, the minister pointed out, too had asked such questions that at the same global forum.
Ms Swaraj accused Mr Sharif of using the UNGA to make "baseless allegations about human rights violations in my country," and advised him to introspect on the "egregious abuses they are perpetrating in their own country, including in Balochistan." She called it the "worst form of state oppression."
Mr Sharif, said the foreign minister, has accused India of placing conditions for talks when in fact Pakistan's answer to India's no-conditions-attached offer of friendship to resolve issues between the two countries was "Pathankot, Bahadur Ali and Uri," referring to multiple attacks by terrorists who have sneaked into India from across the border.
Courtesy: NDTV
