'Have not escalated, only responded to Pahalgam Attack': Foreign secretary Vikram Misri
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New Delhi: Foreign secretary Vikram Misri on Thursday put the onus of de-escalation on Pakistan, saying India had only responded to the April 22 Pahalgam terrorist attack "Our approach is not to escalate the situation, we only responded to the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack," he said at a media briefing. "Pakistan escalated the situation, we only responded. Choice is with Pakistan."The foreign secretary, flanked by Wing Commander Vyomika Singh and Colonel Sofia Qureshi, said at the UNSC meeting , Pakistan opposed any mention of the role of terrorist group The Resistance Force , which had already claimed responsibility for the Pahalgam attack."This is a group that is a known front for the well-known Pakistan-based terrorist organisation, Lashkar-e-Taiba . The group has been reported earlier. I mentioned to you about Indian authorities providing information to the UN 1267 Sanctions Monitoring Committee . In fact, we are going to be meeting with the team again and we will be providing an update to the information that we have provided earlier," he said.He also said that Pakistan's retaliatory actions were impacting civilians, referring to the intensified firing from across LoC in J&K."Pakistan's reputation as the epicentre of global terrorism is rooted in a number of instances... I don't need to remind where Osama Bin Laden was found and who called him a martyr. Pakistan is also home to a large number of UN-proscribed terrorists and also to terrorists proscribed by many countries," he said.He said India's action on Wednesday was restrained and confined to terrorist infrastructure The foreign secretary dismissed Pakistan's claims of civilian casualties during India's cross-border strikes . "If any civilians were killed, what message does it send when their coffins are draped in Pakistani flags and given state honours? As far as we are concerned, those eliminated were terrorists," he said.On Pakistan's claim that religious sites were hit, Misri said, "This is completely false. Our targets were terrorist locations. On the contrary, it was Pakistan that hit Sikh community areas in J&K's Poonch."Regarding the Indus Waters Treaty , he said while India honoured the agreement for more than six decades, Pakistan "has been acting in violation of the treaty by deliberately creating roadblocks".Misri said "this is a country that started lying as soon as it was born".
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