Jaishankar invokes India's right to self-defence in UN rebuke of Pakistan
India's foreign minister S. Jaishankar used his UN General Assembly speech to accuse Pakistan, without naming it, of trying to normalise terrorism and to say India would exercise its right to defend itself. He was responding to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif's remarks about Kashmir and a US role in ending last year's fighting. The exchange leaves the neighbours publicly divided over both that conflict and the terms for better relations.
Geopolitics··Morning
Jaishankar answers Sharif from the UN rostrum
Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar used his address to the UN General Assembly on Saturday to answer Pakistan's prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, who had spoken the previous day. Jaishankar did not name Pakistan in the passage. He accused a speaker the day before of misrepresenting facts, trying to make terrorism seem acceptable and seeking immunity from its consequences. He said India would exercise its right to defend itself against terrorism. The rebuke followed Sharif's remarks about Kashmir and last year's India–Pakistan fighting. Both accounts identify the speech and the response, while the accusation of sponsoring terrorism remains India's position, not an independently established finding. Jaishankar also said friendly relations could not coexist with terrorism and that understandings based on them would come under question.[1], [2]
The 2025 clash and water treaty remain disputed
Sharif had credited US President Donald Trump with a timely intervention in the 2025 confrontation between the nuclear-armed neighbours. New Delhi says the fighting ended without a third party. The conflict followed an attack in Pahalgam, in Indian-administered Kashmir, on 22 April that killed 26 civilians. India launched Operation Sindoor on 7 May, describing its targets as militant infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Those descriptions of the targets are India's own account. Sharif also raised the Indus Waters Treaty, the water-sharing agreement between the countries. India says it will keep the treaty in abeyance until Pakistan credibly and irreversibly ends its support for cross-border terrorism. Islamabad and New Delhi therefore continue to disagree on the earlier fighting and on the basis for restoring a major bilateral arrangement.[1]
India links its warning to state sponsorship
Jaishankar described terrorism as a continuing threat to peace. He argued that state sponsorship directed across a border turns it into a challenge to the international order and said governments involved should be held accountable. He called for a zero-tolerance approach, particularly to the financing of such activity. These were policy demands in a speech, not a new joint decision at the UN. He then urged delegations to leave the General Assembly with a stronger commitment to peace, development and prosperity. Referring to Mahatma Gandhi's words displayed outside the UN building, he said peace could not be imposed or simply negotiated and had to become a way of thinking. That appeal did not withdraw his warning: he maintained that India would defend itself while requiring Pakistan, as he framed it, to change its conduct before goodwill could underpin bilateral understandings.[1]
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