India criticised Pakistan at the UN over democracy, terrorism and Kashmir, defended suspending the Indus Waters Treaty, and rejected Islamabad’s claims during a sharp exchange at the Security Council.
Photo : AP
India has once again exposed Pakistan’s internal crisis at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), calling out its democratic credentials for jailing an elected leader in Imran Khan and granting a lifetime immunity to its top defence leadership in Asim Munir.
Speaking at the UNSC Open Debate on “Leadership for Peace”, India’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Harish Parvathaneni, highlighted Pakistan’s “twisted” way of respecting people’s will.
“Pakistan, of course, has a unique way of respecting the will of its people – by jailing a Prime Minister, by banning the ruling political party and by letting its armed forces engineer a constitutional coup through the 27th amendment and giving lifetime immunity to its Chief of Defence Forces,” Parvathaneni said.
The envoy also highlighted Pakistan’s internal political instability and how the military leadership continues to grow there threatening democracy.
Parvathaneni also slammed Pakistan for constantly raising the Kashmir issue at the global platform, reiterating that the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh are “an integral and inalienable part of India”, emphasising “they were, are, and will always remain so.”
He also explained why India put an end to the Indus Waters Treaty.
“India had entered into the Indus Waters Treaty, 65 years ago, in good faith, in a spirit of good will and friendship. Throughout these six and a half decades, Pakistan has violated the spirit of the Treaty by inflicting three wars and thousands of terror attacks on India,” Parvathaneni explained as he called Pakistan the “global epicentre of terror.”
Over the past four decades, tens of thousands of Indian lives have been lost in what he described as “Pakistan-sponsored terror attacks,” Parvathaneni said, pointing to the most recent incident in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir, in April, where 26 civilians, including a foreign national, were killed.
“It is in this backdrop that India has finally announced that the Treaty will be held in abeyance until Pakistan, which is a global epicentre of terror, credibly and irrevocably ends its support for cross-border and all other forms of terrorism,” he said.
The sharp response followed remarks by Pakistan’s representative, Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, who reiterated Islamabad’s claim that Jammu and Kashmir remains an “unresolved dispute” while criticising India’s suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty.
“Pakistan seeks peace and stability in South Asia, but peace cannot be unilateral pursuit,” Ahmad said, referring to Jammu and Kashmir.
