Quad meeting: Pahalgam terror attack was economic warfare, says Jaishankar; rules out yielding to nuclear blackmail

Time of India

9 hours ago

NEW DELHI: External affairs minister
S Jaishankar
on Tuesday described the April 22
Pahalgam terror attack
in Jammu and Kashmir as an act of economic warfare designed to destroy the region's tourism and provoke communal violence.
He said that India would not be deterred by nuclear threats and would continue to act against terrorism emanating from Pakistan.
Speaking at a Newsweek event at One World Trade Center in New York, Jaishankar said the attack was meant to cripple Kashmir's economy by targeting its core sector — tourism — and incite religious violence. 'It was meant to destroy tourism in Kashmir, which was the mainstay of the economy. It was also meant to provoke religious violence because people were asked to identify their faith before they were killed,' he said.
Jaishankar added that India's response, through
Operation Sindoor
, targeted terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. 'These are terrorist organisations who have the equivalent of their corporate headquarters in the populated towns of Pakistan... and those are the buildings, the headquarters that India destroyed,' he said.
He underlined India's clear position that there would be no impunity for terrorists.
'We will not deal with them any longer as proxies and spare the government which supports and finances and in many ways, motivates them. We will not allow nuclear blackmail to prevent us from responding,' he stated.
Jaishankar criticised the long-standing argument that both India and Pakistan are nuclear powers and hence New Delhi must act with restraint. 'Now we are not going to fall for that... If he is going to come and do things, we are going to go there and also hit the people who did this,' he said, drawing applause from the audience.
He emphasised that terrorism is a global threat and no country should use it as a tool for political ends. 'There should be zero tolerance for terrorism, no justification under which a country would allow, support, finance or sponsor terrorist acts,' he said.
The foreign minister is currently on an official visit to the United States and is scheduled to attend the Quad Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Washington DC on Tuesday.
He began his visit by inaugurating a UN exhibition titled The Human Cost of Terrorism, organised by India's Permanent Mission to the UN.
Recalling India's long struggle with cross-border terrorism, Jaishankar said it dated back to 1947, when Pakistan first sent tribal invaders into Kashmir. He referenced major attacks including the 2001 Parliament attack and the 2008 Mumbai carnage as part of this continued campaign.
During the Q&A session, Jaishankar was asked about Donald Trump's claim that he used trade to prevent a recent India-Pakistan conflict. Jaishankar dismissed any impact on negotiations, stating that trade talks were proceeding professionally.
He also disclosed a crucial moment from May 9, when Vice President JD Vance warned Prime Minister Narendra Modi of a possible Pakistani offensive. 'The Prime Minister was impervious to what the Pakistanis were threatening... he indicated that there would be a response,' Jaishankar said. He added that Pakistan launched a major attack that night, which India swiftly countered.
'The next morning, Mr (Secretary of State Marco) Rubio called me up and said the Pakistanis were ready to talk,' Jaishankar said, recounting the diplomatic sequence that followed India's retaliation.