External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar told the 81st UN General Assembly that India “will exercise” its right to defend itself against terrorism, in a national statement delivered in New York on Saturday (early Sunday India time) that also doubled as a rebuttal to Pakistan.
A pointed reply to Pakistan
Without naming the country, Jaishankar said a “serial practitioner of terrorism” had misrepresented facts before the Assembly a day earlier and tried to “normalise terrorism and claim immunity from its consequences”. “Friendship and goodwill cannot co-exist with terrorism,” he said, adding that it was for the perpetrator to mend its ways. He called for accountability for state-sponsored, cross-border terrorism and for exposing its financing.
The context
Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had used his address to credit US President Donald Trump for intervening in the 2025 India–Pakistan conflict and to raise Kashmir and the Indus Waters Treaty. India has consistently denied any third-party role after Operation Sindoor and says the treaty stays in abeyance until Pakistan ends support for cross-border terrorism.
Beyond terrorism: reform, AI and the Global South
The speech also pressed for reformed multilateralism in what Jaishankar called an emerging multipolar world, and highlighted India’s role as a first responder in disasters. On artificial intelligence, he said India backs each nation’s right to shape its own ecosystem and models, referring to the AI Impact Summit India hosted in February. He closed by calling for “cultural rebalancing” alongside economic and political shifts.
Why it matters: The statement restates India’s red lines on terrorism on the world stage just as Islamabad seeks to internationalise bilateral issues, and it keeps UN Security Council reform on India’s diplomatic agenda. It follows similar messaging at the SCO summit in Bishkek, after which Pakistan took over the SCO chair.
Sources: India Today | The Indian Express | The Hindu
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