5 takeaways from Sushma’s UNGA speech that took on Pak, terror
External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj was unsparing in her takedown of Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s speech at the UN General Assembly. She said Pakistan should give up its dream of “snatching” Jammu and Kashmir even as she called for the isolation of countries that don’t join a global strategy against terrorism.
External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj was unsparing in her takedown of Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s speech at the UN General Assembly. She said Pakistan should give up its dream of “snatching” Jammu and Kashmir even as she called for the isolation of countries that don’t join a global strategy against terrorism.
Read: Abandon your Kashmir dream, it is integral part of India: Swaraj tells Pak
Here are five takeaways from Swaraj’s address:
1) Front against terror: India wants a united front against countries that speak the language of terrorism, peddle it, nurture it and export it, so that they can be isolated. Swaraj said such countries have “no place in the comity of nations”. Pakistan was not named to make the appeal not appear like another tit-for-tat.
2) Balochistan: Swaraj did name Pakistan to rubbish allegations levelled by Sharif regarding human rights violations in Kashmir. Pakistan should worry about Baluchistan instead, she said. “The brutality against the Baloch people represents the worst form of state oppression,” she added.
Read: Full text of Sushma Swaraj’s speech at UN general assembly
3) No pre-conditions for talks: Swaraj strenuously denied Sharif’s charge that India had set pre-conditions for talks. “We took the initiative to resolve issues not on the basis of conditions, but on the basis of friendship! We have in fact attempted a paradigm of friendship in the last two years which is without precedent,” she said.
4) India will continue to press UN members on the comprehensive convention on international terrorism, which it introduced at the world body in 1996. The failure to adopt it has prevented the world from agreeing on norms to punish and extradite terrorists, Swaraj said.
5) India will submit its ratification of the Paris climate change treaty on October 2, the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.
