'Pakistan is Terroristan': India in strong reply to Pak PM at United Nations

New York: Pakistan has now become 'terroristan', India told the United Nations, in a befitting reply to its new Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi's charges that New Delhi was instigating war crimes in Kashmir.

Making use of its right-to-reply, India's First Secretary to the United Nations, Eenam Gambhir said, "In its short history, Pakistan has become geography synonymous with terror. The quest for a land of pure has actually produced 'the land of pure terror'. Pakistan is now 'Terroristan', with a flourishing industry producing and exporting global terrorism."

"This is a country whose counter-terrorism policy is to maintsream and upstream terrorists by either providing safe havens to global terror leaders in its military or protecting them with political careers," Gambhir added.

In his first remarks to the U.N. general assembly, Abbasi had attacked India, accusing New Delhi of carrying out war crimes in Kashmir.

"Pakistan demands an international investigation into India's crimes in Kashmir," he said and demanded an inquiry Commission be sent to Kashmir "to verify the nature and extent of India's human rights violations, secure the punishment of those responsible and provide justice and relief to the victims."

India, in reaction to this, said, "The state which protected Osama Bin Laden and sheltered Mullah Omar should have gumption to play the victim? By now, all Pakistan's neighbours are painfully familiar with these tactics of creating narratives based on distortions, deceptions and deceit. This august assembly and the world beyond know that efforts for creating alternative facts do not change reality."

"With the flourshing industry producing and exporting global terrorism, its current state can be gauged from the fact that Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, a leader of the U.N. designated terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba, is now sought to be legitimised as a leader of a political party," Gambhir said, referring to the mastermind of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack, who has now launched a new political party - Milli Muslim League (MML).

"None of this can justify Pakistan's efforts to covet the territories of its neighbours and as far as India is concerned, Pakistan must understand that the state of Jammu and Kashmir is and will always remain an integral part of India. However much it scales up the cross border terrorism, it will never succeed in undermining India's territorial integrity. Even as terrorists thrive in Pakistan and roam around its streets with impunity, we have heard it lecture about protection of human rights in India. The world does not need lessons on democracy and human rights from a country whose own situation is charitably described as a failed state," she added.

"Having diverted millions of dollars in international military and development aid towards creating a dangerous infrastructure of terror on its own territory, Pakistan is now speaking of the high cost of its terror industry. The polluter, in this case, is paying the price."

"Pakistan can only be counselled to abandon the destructive worldview that has caused grief to the entire world. If it could be persuaded to demonstrate any commitment to civilisation, order, and to peace, it may still find some acceptance in the comity of nations," Gambhir concluded.

In his address, the Pakistan prime minister had also added that India was not willing to resume dialogue to resolve the dispute.

"To this end, the UN Secretary-General should appoint a Special Envoy on Kashmir," he said.

Abbasi further said Pakistan has been consistently active in the war against terrorism and that it has lost more to the cause than any other nation.

Speaking about the issue of terrorism and the Afghan conflict, the premier said that Pakistan had sacrificed a lot of lives in the war on terror, and nobody desired peace in Afghanistan more than Pakistan.

"Our counter-terrorism credentials cannot be questioned. We have lost 2,700 lives and sustained 50,000 injuries in this war," he said.

"From sixteen years of the ongoing war in Afghanistan, it is clear that peace could not be restored by the continuing resort to military force. Neither Kabul and the coalition nor the Afghan Taliban can impose military solution on each other."

"Apart from Afghanistan, Pakistan and its people have suffered the most from four decades of foreign intervention and civil wars in Afghanistan," he added.

During his 20-minute speech, Abbasi stated that Taliban safe havens are located not in Pakistan but in large tracts of territory controlled by the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The Pakistan Prime Minister also maintained that Islamabad was not prepared to fight the Afghan war on Pakistan's soil.

"Neither can we endorse any fair strategy that prolongs and intensify the sufferings of the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan," he said.

He also identified two flaws in the global counter-terror strategy. One of this, Abbasi remarked, was state-sponsored terrorism, and the failure of the UN to reign in states that use this as an instrument of their foreign policy.