New Delhi, July 15: Vowing that India will remain firm in its response to confront terrorism, External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar said the Pahalgam attack was a deliberate attempt to undermine the tourism economy of Jammu and Kashmir and sow a religious divide.
Jaishnaker was speaking at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting in the Chinese city of Tianjin. Pakistani and Chinese delegations too were in attendance when EAM raked up the Pahalgam terror attack.
Jaishankar said India will continue to positively approach new ideas and proposals, asserting that such cooperation must be based on “mutual respect”, “sovereign equality,” and by “territorial integrity and sovereignty” of member states.
His remarks came against the backdrop of growing global criticism of China’s mega connectivity project — the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) — on the ground that it showed disregard for the sovereignty of the nations and lacked transparency.
EAM’s comments calling for SCO to adopt an “uncompromising” position to combat terrorism amid some disquiet in New Delhi over Beijing’s tacit support to Islamabad during Operation Sindoor, as well as instances of China blocking efforts at the UN Security Council to sanction Pakistan-based terrorists.
Jaishankar also flagged concerns over “conflicts, competition and coercion” as well as economic instability and underlined the need to stabilise the global order and address longstanding challenges that “threaten our collective interests”.
The major focus of the external affairs minister’s address was his call to effectively deal with terrorism.
Jaishankar said the UN Security Council condemned the attack and underlined the need to hold perpetrators, organisers, financiers, and sponsors of the reprehensible act and bring them to justice.
The external affairs minister said India has done “exactly that” and it will continue doing so.
“The three evils that SCO was founded to combat were terrorism, separatism, and extremism. Not surprisingly, they often occur together. Recently, we in India witnessed a graphic example in the terrorist attack in Pahalgam on April 22,” Jaishankar said.
“The UN Security Council, of which some of us are currently members, issued a statement that condemned it in the strongest terms and ‘underlined the need to hold perpetrators, organisers, financiers and sponsors of this reprehensible act of terrorism accountable and bring them to justice’,” he said.
“We have since done exactly that and will continue doing so. It is imperative that the SCO, to remain true to its founding objectives, take an uncompromising position on this challenge,” he said.