E-Paper
Operation Sindoor created new normal for fighting terror from Pak: Jaishankar
Jaishankar said India’s new approach is based on a five-point approach, which makes it clear that “terror and good neighbourliness cannot co-exist “
NEW DELHI: India’s military response to the Pahalgam attack has created a “new normal” for fighting cross-border terrorism emanating from Pakistan that includes confining bilateral talks to terrorism and not giving in to nuclear blackmail, external affairs minister S Jaishankar said on Monday.
Participating in a special debate on Operation Sindoor, the military operation launched on May 7 to target terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan in retaliation for the Pahalgam terror attack that killed 26 civilians, Jaishankar said India’s new approach is based on a five-point approach, which makes it clear that “terror and good neighbourliness cannot co-exist [and] blood and water cannot flow together”.
A day after the Pahalgam attack that was claimed by The Resistance Front (TRF), a front for the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), India unveiled a range of punitive economic and diplomatic measures, including the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty. The military operation triggered four days of hostilities that ended with an understanding on May 7.
“The challenge of cross-border terrorism continues but Operation Sindoor marks a new phase. There is now a new normal. The new normal has five points. One, terrorists will not be treated as proxies. Two, cross-border terrorism will get an appropriate response. Three, terror and talks are not possible together. There will only be talks on terror,” Jaishankar said at the conclusion of his intervention in Lok Sabha.
“Four, not yielding to nuclear blackmail. And finally, terror and good neighbourliness cannot coexist, blood and water cannot flow together. This is our position.”
Jaishankar, who spoke on the foreign policy dimension of India’s response to the Pahalgam attack, made it clear that the understanding to halt military actions on May 7 was reached by the Directors General of Military Operations (DGMOs) of India and Pakistan – thereby implying that US President Donald Trump had played no role in the matter.
He said there was no contact between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Trump between April 22, when the US leader called to condemn the Pahalgam attack, and June 17, when the two leaders spoke on the phone after they were unable to meet on the margins of the G7 Summit in Canada.
“I want to make two things very clear… One, at no stage in any conversation with the US was there any linkage with trade and what was going on. Secondly, there was no call between the Prime Minister and President Trump from April 22, when President Trump called up to convey his sympathy, and June 17, when he called up Prime Minister in Canada to explain why he could not meet [Modi], Jaishankar said.
Trump has claimed on more than 20 occasions that he brokered a “ceasefire” between India and Pakistan, as they are nuclear-armed states. Trump has continued making these claims despite pushback from the external affairs ministry, and he has also said that he used the threat of suspending trade to get the two South Asian nations to stop hostilities.
While the military hostilities were ongoing, several countries and leaders contacted the Indian side to gauge New Delhi’s thinking. “To everybody, we gave a common message [that] India is exercising its right to defend itself against terrorism [and there] will be no mediation,” he said.
He added, “We received phone calls sharing the impression of other countries that Pakistan was ready to cease the fighting. Our position was that if Pakistan was ready, we needed to get this request from the Pakistani side through the DGMO. That is exactly how that request came.”
Though India announced a range of punitive measures against Pakistan a day after the Pahalgam attack, including keeping the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 in abeyance and shutting down the only operational land border crossing at Attari, Jaishankar said India’s response could “not stop there”. He added, “Our red lines had been crossed and we had to make it very apparent that there would be serious consequences.”
Before launching Operation Sindoor, Jaishankar said, India began “shaping the global understanding” of the Pahalgam attack by highlighting to the world community Pakistan’s long-standing use of cross-border terror, and how the attack was “meant to target the economy of Jammu and Kashmir and to sow communal discord among the people of India”. India’s message at this time was that there would be zero tolerance of terrorism and the country’s right to defend the people against terrorism.
India faced a challenge in these efforts because Pakistan is currently a member of the UN Security Council. However, India worked to get an endorsement from the Security Council of the need for accountability and to bring to justice those who perpetrated the Pahalgam attack, he said. This was conveyed in the Council’s press statement of April 25, which condemned the attack and emphasised the need to hold the perpetrators, organisers, financiers, and sponsors of the attack accountable.
This statement of the Security Council “resonated throughout the international community”, Jaishankar said while responding to comments by opposition members on what the government had done to get international support. Apart from Pakistan and three other nations, most of the 193 members of the UN had backed India’s position, he said.
The government’s efforts also led to the recent US designation of the TRF as a global terrorist organisation, which came after the Pakistan government blocked any reference to the terror group at the UN Security Council.
Jaishankar also responded to opposition criticism of the government’s response to terrorism by citing specific instances under previous Congress party-led governments, such as the decision not to launch any military actions in retaliation for the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks carried out by the LeT and the decision to declare terrorism as a common concern of India and Pakistan and to include a reference to the situation in Pakistan’s Balochistan province in a joint statement issued after a meeting between former premiers Manmohan Singh and Yousaf Raza Gilani in Egypt in July 2009.
“It was a commitment made by the Prime Minister to the people of India that we would hit those [terrorist] symbols, those sites, those planning places. So today, when I hear many questions from [the opposition], I want to say which one of you imagined that Bahawalpur and Muridke would be brought down the way it was,” he said, referring to India’s strikes on the main bases of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and LeT.
Jaishankar also responded to remarks by opposition members warning of a “two-front” situation involving China and Pakistan by saying this was due to the policies of past Congress governments dating back to the 1940s. This is also due to joint efforts by Islamabad and Beijing, including the ceding of Shaksgam Valley by Pakistan to China in 1963, the supply of Chinese military equipment to Pakistan since 1966, and nuclear collaboration between the two countries since 1976, he said. “So…we are getting warnings about Pakistan-China collaboration when this collaboration has been going on for 60 years,” he added.
