United Nations: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar delivered a stern message to Pakistan during his address at the 79th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) session in New York.
He warned Islamabad, wilting under a deep economic crisis and seeking an IMF bailout, that its longstanding policy of promoting terrorism would have inevitable repercussions, stating, “Actions will most certainly have consequences.”
Addressing the ‘Pakistan problem’ towards the end of his nearly twenty-minute speech, Jaishankar emphasized that Pakistan’s strategy of cross-border terrorism would never achieve its goals. “Pakistan’s policy of cross-border terrorism can and will never succeed,” he asserted.
“A dysfunctional nation coveting the lands of others must be exposed and must be countered. We heard some bizarre assertions from it at this forum yesterday. So let me make India’s position perfectly clear,” he said.
Highlights of his speech targeting Pakistan:
- Many countries get left behind due to circumstances beyond their control. But some make conscious choices with disastrous consequences. A premier example is our neighbour, Pakistan. Unfortunately, their misdeeds affect others as well, especially the neighbourhood.
- When this polity instils such fanaticism among its people, its GDP can only be measured in terms of radicalization and its exports in the form of terrorism.
- Today, we see the ills it sought to visit on others consume its own society. It can’t blame the world; this is only karma.
- Pakistan’s cross-border terrorism policy will never succeed. And it can have no expectation of impunity. On the contrary, actions will certainly have consequences.
- The issue to be resolved between us is now only the vacation of illegally occupied Indian territory by Pakistan. And of course the abandonment of Pakistan’s longstanding attachment to terrorism.
