India at UNSC: External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar lashed out at Pakistan at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) saying that Islamabad is not good at taking good advice and the world today sees it as the epicentre of terrorism.
Speaking to reporters Jaishankar said, “…They’re ministers in Pakistan who can tell how long Pakistan intends to practice terrorism. World isn’t stupid, it increasingly calls out countries, organisations indulging in terrorism… my advice is to clean up your act and try to be good neighbour.”
“A decade ago, Hillary Clinton during her visit to Pakistan said that if you keep snakes in your backyard you can’t expect them to bite only your neighbours, they’ll bite your own people. Pakistan is not good at taking this advice,” Jaishankar said.
“We have declared our candidature for the next tenure at Security Council 2028-29 and we look forward to it. One of our key expectations is that Afghanistan will not again serve as a base for terrorism against other countries. We expect Afghanistan to honour this,” he said.
Speaking on 26/11 Mumbai attack survivor Nurse Anjali Kulthe who shared her account with UNSC, Jaishankar said, “her account made a particularly vivid impact among the Council members, moved a lot of the members.”
During his address, Jaishankar told the UN Security Council that the “contemporary epicentre of terrorism” remains very much active as he lamented that evidence-backed proposals to blacklist terrorists are put on hold without adequate reason, in a veiled attack on China and its close ally Pakistan.
Jaishankar, who presided over the ‘UNSC Briefing: Global Counterterrorism Approach: Challenges and Way Forward’, described terrorism as an existential threat to international peace and security and said it knows no borders, nationality, or race.
“The threat of terrorism has actually become even more serious. We have seen the expansion of Al-Qaida, Da’esh, Boko Haram and Al Shabab and their affiliates,” he said in his address to the 15-nation Council.
Jaishankar, speaking in his national capacity, said that “at the other end of the spectrum are ‘lone wolf’ attacks inspired by online radicalisation and biases. But somewhere in all of this, we cannot forget that old habits and established networks are still alive, especially in South Asia. The contemporary epicentre of terrorism remains very much active, whatever gloss may be applied to minimise unpleasant realities.”
He was apparently referring to Pakistan, which is accused by its neighbours of harbouring terrorists and providing safe havens to several terrorist groups like al-Qaida, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Taliban.
Highlighting specific challenges with which the counter-terrorism architecture is currently grappling, Jaishankar stressed the need of addressing double standards in countering terrorism, leading to concerns of politicisation.
(With inputs from PTI)
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