NEW YORK - In heated exchanges between India and Pakistan at the UN, Pakistan warned India against aggressions and said it had the right to defend itself.
India responds back to Pakistan allegations at UN
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Responding to Pakistan’s permanent representative to the UN Maleeha Lodhi’s allegations of India spreading terrorism in the Kashmir, India said her comment was a “lonely voice from the wilderness”.
According to The Hindu, Lodhi warned India against aggression. “Do not underestimate Pakistan’s resolve and capacity to defend itself. Any aggression or intervention will meet a matching and effective response from our armed forces and the people of Pakistan,” she said, adding that India was making false claims about last year’s “surgical strike” across the Line of Control.
However, “this provides Pakistan sufficient reason to respond in the exercise of its right to self-defence. By making such false claims and blatant threats, are India’s leaders attempting to provoke a conflict with Pakistan?” she said.
Indian diplomat Eenam Gambhir responded to Lodhi and said: “Even while we have heard speakers address concerns of the present and the future, you have heard a lonely voice from the wilderness articulate a narrative of the past … It is focussed on a topic that is not even been deliberated for decades at the United Nations, an issue which that delegation tries to keep alive by procedural stratagems even while the world has moved on ... Yesterday’s people reflecting antiquated mindsets of the bygone times are symbolic of what holds us all back.”
The Hindu reported that speaking at the General Assembly, India’s Permanent Representative Syed Akbaruddin said the international landscape dramatically changed last year, and the UN must undertake reforms in a manner that responds to these changes.
Participating in a debate on the annual report on the work of the UN, Akbaruddin said the world body must not wait for “dramatic crises” to appreciate the changes under way and act pre-emptively.
