New Delhi, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Thursday castigated Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s speech at the 17st session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) and said that his address discredited the kind of responsible statesmanship expected from the Prime Minster of a nation.
Advertisement
Criticising Sharif for glorifying a self-confessed militant, India said it “will not succumb to blackmail tactics of the Pakistan Government that seems eager to use terrorism as policy”.
Ahead of the press conference in response to Sharif’s speech, India’s official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs Vikas Swarup tweeted: “Pak PM Sharif at #UNGA in complete denial of Uri terror attack”.
Welcoming UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s offer of “good offices” to help resolve the outstanding issues between India and Pakistan, Nawaz said, “Pakistan wants peace with India”. PM Sharif at #UNGA says India poses unacceptable conditions to dialogue.
What we see in Pakistan, Mr. President, is a terrorist state, which channelizes billions of dollars, much of it diverted from worldwide aid, to training, financing and supporting terrorist groups as militant proxies against it neighbours.
“We will not win the fight against terrorism, as long as we do not address its root cause which lie in the poverty and ignorance”, he said.
Dismissing the possibility of talks for now, he said: “Pakistan wants a dialogue while it holds a gun in its hand, terrorists’ gun”.
She also referred to the latest attacks on the Uri army base, at India-administered Kashmir’s border with Pakistan. “Our actions speak for themselves and you can see our actions are already delivering results”, Swarup said. Sources said it was surprising that Pakistan was deploying additional troops along the western sector also but this could well be a preventive measure on its part.
He said India always set unacceptable preconditions for talks, which hampered the process every time. The attack on the army installation in Uri left 18 soldiers dead.
“Pakistan is committed to peace and stability in the region”.
Pakistan has rejected the allegation and accused India of apportioning blame before the incident had been investigated properly. On the contrary, virtually every statement has referred to terrorism as the main threat to worldwide peace and security, a fact that Pakistan still remains in denial of.
Advertisement
Sharif told the United Nations General Assembly on September 21 that Pakistan can not ignore India’s “unprecedented” weapons build-up and will “take whatever measures are necessary to maintain credible deterrence”.
