At UNSC, Pak diplomat hits back at India
Rejecting Indian allegations of cross-border terrorism, Pakistan has asked India to change its behaviour, instead of resorting to its "tired narrative of victimhood and blame-shifting" during a UN Security Council debate on 'Promoting International Peace and Security through Multilateralism and Peaceful Settlement of Disputes'.
"It is India which actively sponsors, aids and abets terrorism in my country and beyond," Ambassador Usman Jadoon, deputy permanent representative of Pakistan to the UN, told the 15-member body on Tuesday evening, while responding to the allegations made by India's UN Ambassador Parvathaneni Harish.
"Rather than being blinded by hubris and a misplaced sense of impunity, and instead of resorting to its tired narrative of victimhood and blame-shifting, India must introspect seriously, change its behaviour and comply with its international legal obligations on all counts," he said in the debate convened by Pakistan to promote pacific settlement of disputes between nations.
Ambassador Jadoon said it was especially regrettable that the Indian ambassador targeted Pakistan on Tuesday when earlier in the day, the Council spoke with a unanimous voice to reaffirm the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and the imperative of peaceful settlement of disputes, respect for international law and effective implementation of the resolution of the Security Council.
The Indian envoy was reacting to Pakistani Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar who underscored the need for the resolution of Kashmir dispute in a speech he gave in his national capacity after the adoption of Pakistan-sponsored resolution calling for the peaceful settlement of disputes.
"First of all," the Pakistani envoy asserted that India was in illegal occupation of the disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
"While claiming to abide by the UN Charter and purportedly the principle of peaceful settlement of disputes, India has been in violation of Security Council resolutions on the Jammu & Kashmir dispute, and has refused to implement those resolutions, thereby denying the Kashmiri people the exercise of their inalienable right to self-determination," he added.
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