NEW YORK: A Pakistani diplomat hit back at the Indian External Affairs Minister’s speech in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on Saturday that depicted Islamabad as a promoter of terrorism, saying it was well documented that New Delhi was not only carrying out state terrorism in occupied Kashmir but also abroad.
“It is most ironic that New Delhi, which is carrying out the worst form of state terrorism in Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir while also actively engaging in backing and sponsoring terrorism abroad, is portraying itself as the victim,” Pakistani diplomat Muhammad Faheem told the UNGA.
Earlier in the day, S. Jaishankar, the Indian minister for external affairs, protested against Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif raising the dispute of Kashmir in the UN General Assembly and went on to blame Pakistan of pursuing a policy of cross-border terrorism.
“It is a familiar trick of all colonizers as well as occupiers to paint legitimate struggles for freedom and liberation as terrorism” he said.
New Delhi is failing to press the enormity of the indigenous Kashmiri resistance against its stranglehold and wrongly alleging it on cross-border terrorism,” Faheem, a diplomat at the Pakistan Mission to the United Nations, said while also exercising his right of response.
“New Delhi must introspect, reflect, and immediately execute the UNSC resolutions that provide for the Kashmiris to exercise their right to self-determination,” the diplomat said, and called for holding New Delhi answerable for its actions that violate global law.
Highlighting that New Delhi finances terrorism against Islamabad using its proxies, the Pakistani delegate stated that India’s campaign to damage and destroy Pakistan’s economy was no secret, including by hindering the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) through the sponsorship of terrorist groups such as the banned Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) and the Majeed Brigade. He said that New Delhi is also supporting terrorism in Balochistan, Pakistan.
He said that New Dehli’s assassination drive against its dissidents residing overseas has also been exposed in Canada and the United States (US), while its leaders publicly boast of killing their citizens abroad.
He said the New Delhi seeks expansion of territory via unilateral measures to consolidate its occupation of Jammu and Kashmir and crass threats to cross the Line of Control (LOC) to take over the liberated territory of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK),” Faheem added, referring to the Indian minister’s statement that Pakistan was ‘coveting the lands of others’.
Pointing out that New Delhi’s military buildup in nuclear and conventional arms was mainly deployed against Pakistan, Faheem stated, “New Delhi is pursuing highly dangerous warfighting doctrines to engage in a conventional military confrontation with Islamabad under the nuclear overhang.
