Biggest sponsor of cross-border terrorism, Pakistan ‘masquerading’ as victim: India to UN

ISLAMABAD, Aug 25, 2020, The Hindu. The Pakistan Mission falsely claimed that its UN envoy Munir Akram gave a statement at a Security Council debate on Report of the Secretary General on Threats to International Peace and Security posed by Terrorism Actions, India said, The Hindu reported.

India hit out at Pakistan at the United Nations after Islamabad’s UN envoy claimed to have given a statement in a Security Council meeting not open to non-Council members and said that the biggest sponsor of cross-border terrorism against it was now trying to “masquerade” as a victim.

Calling Pakistan’s assertion that it had been a target of cross-border terrorism for decades a lie, India said, “a lie repeated a hundred times would not become the truth. The biggest sponsor of cross-border terrorism against India now tries to masquerade itself as a victim of terrorism by India.”

The Pakistan Mission falsely claimed that its UN envoy Munir Akram gave a statement at a Security Council debate on Report of the Secretary General on Threats to International Peace and Security posed by Terrorism Actions, India’s Permanent Mission to the UN said on August 24.

The Security Council meeting on threats to international peace and security was not open to non-members of the Council. A photograph of the meeting tweeted by the German Mission to the UN showed envoys of the 15 Security Council members only. Pakistan is not a member of the Council.

“We fail to comprehend where exactly did the Permanent Representative of Pakistan make his statement since the Security Council session today was not open to non-members of the Security Council. Be that as it may, the five big lies of Pakistan lies exposed,” India’s Mission to the UN said in a post on Twitter.

On Mr. Akram’s claim that Pakistan has decimated Al-Qaeda (extremist Salafist militant organization, banned in Russia) from the region, India said that perhaps the Permanent Representative of Pakistan was not aware that Osama bin Laden was hiding in their own country in plain sight, and that it was the U.S. forces which got him inside Pakistan. “Nor have they heard their Prime Minister refer to Osama bin Laden as a martyr.”

New Delhi termed Pakistan’s claim that India had hired terrorists as mercenaries as laughable .

“Coming from a country that is a known sponsor of cross-border terrorism, which has made the world suffer due to its actions, this claim is nothing short of being preposterous!”

India also said that Pakistan was home to the largest number of terrorists proscribed by the UN and many of the sanctioned terrorists and entities continue to operate with impunity inside Pakistan. “Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan himself had admitted at the General Assembly last year about the presence of 40,000 to 50,000 terrorists inside Pakistan.”

Terming the Pakistan statement regarding Indian nationals being on the 1267 Al Qaeda Sanctions List of the UN Security Council, India said the Sanctions List was public and the world could see none of those individuals were in it.

“The 1267 Committee works on the basis of evidence and not random accusations thrown in to divert their time and attention,” India said in response to Pakistan’s statement that it had submitted names of some Indians to be proscribed under the Sanctions List.

In a strong response to Islamabad raking up the issue of Jammu and Kashmir in the remarks it falsely said Mr. Akram made to the Council, India said Pakistan makes ridiculous assertions about internal affairs of India.

“This is a country whose minority population has dropped drastically since 1947 — just about 3% — which is nothing short of systemic cleansing. This is in addition to false allegations about India’s sovereign actions in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, which are for the welfare of the people,” India said.

“Pakistan consistently rakes up the issue of Jammu and Kashmir and other internal matters of India at various UN fora in its bid to internationalise the issue but has repeatedly failed to get any support from the broader UN membership for its agenda,” India said.