United Nations, Jan 27 (IANS) The Pakistani military directly “pleaded” for the end of Operation Sindoor, India has reminded the Security Council, dismissing claims of external intervention.
“We will do whatever is required to protect and ensure the safety and security of our citizens”, India’s Permanent Representative P Harish also warned on Monday.
“Let me reiterate again that terrorism can never be normalised as Pakistan wishes to do”, he said.
While pointing out that Operation Sindoor was in furtherance of the Council’s stand against terrorism, he laid out the sequence of events leading to the end of the operation that took a toll on Pakistan’s air force.
“Till May 9, Pakistan was threatening more attacks on India, but on May 10, the Pakistani military called our military directly and pleaded for a cessation to the fighting”, he said.
“The destruction caused to multiple Pakistani air bases by the Indian operation, including images of destroyed runways and burnt out hangars, is in the public domain”, he said.
India’s response to the attack by Pakistan-based terrorists on tourists in Pahalgam on April 22 last year was measured and responsible, he said.
The Resistance Front, an affiliate of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, which has been declared a terrorist organisation by the United States and India, said it had carried out the religion-based attack that killed 26 people.
In launching Operation Sindoor, India was responding to the Council’s call for “holding the perpetrators, organisers, financiers and sponsors of this reprehensible act of terrorism accountable and brought to justice”, Harish said.
“India’s actions were measured, non-escalatory, responsible and focused on dismantling the terrorist infrastructure and disabling terrorism”, he said.
Harish did not name US President Donald Trump, who has claimed that he ended the conflict through his diplomacy and threats of tariffs and made a claim for a Nobel Peace Prize.
During the Council’s open debate on “Reaffirming international rule of law”, Pakistan’s Permanent Representative Asim Iftikhar Ahmad brought up Operation Sindoor, claiming it was an “unprovoked military aggression”.
He went on to speak about the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty and his version of the situation in Kashmir.
Dismissing the claims about Kashmir, Harish declared, “The Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir has been, is and will always remain, an integral and inalienable part of India”.
About the Indus Rivers Treaty that Prime Minister Narendra Modi suspended after the Pahalgam attack, Harish explained, “India was compelled to finally announce that the treaty will be held in abeyance until Pakistan, a global epicentre of terror, credibly and irrevocably ends its support for cross-border and all other forms of terror”.
About Islamabad’s habit of raising the Kashmir and other “issues” it has with India at UN forums regardless of the topic under discussion, Harish said, “This hallowed chamber cannot become a forum for Pakistan to legitimise terrorism”.
As for Ahmad speaking about the rule of law, Harish advised introspection.
Pakistan “could start by asking itself, how it has let its armed forces engineer a constitutional coup through the 27th Amendment and giving lifetime immunity to its chief of defence forces”.
The 27th Amendment to the Pakistan Constitution in November virtually established the supremacy of the military.
--IANS
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