Indian Ambassador to the US Vinay Kwatra underlined that India is fighting a war against terrorism and cautioned that the international community should be worried about Pakistan's ongoing support for terror activities.
He noted that India had made targeted and calibrated strikes on terror factories in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, hoping these actions would have an element of finality. But Pakistan, infamous for its patronage of terror outfits, decided to raise the stakes by attacking India.
When questioned if India was at war with Pakistan, Kwatra explained, "We are at war with terrorists and we will bring justice to the victims and hold them accountable." He made this statement in an interview on CNN's "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer and Pamela Brown."
Kwatra defied the idea that this was a conflict between Indian Hindus and Pakistani Muslims. He put it this way: "I think it is Indian action against the terrorists, the people who conducted the massacres of the civilians. Our frame of reference in conducting these attacks is to hold terrorism accountable."
He went on further to say, "Pakistan once again decided to stand with the terrorists. Instead of acting against them, they are basically lending their support to them. We would not be surprised if they themselves are the ones involved with this, but that is what message they give: We stand with the terrorists, we stand with the rest of the rest of the world and humanity and not with any of them.
Kwatra also lambasted Pakistan's ongoing denial of its role in the Pahalgam terror attacks, blaming it on their course of avoiding accountability. He said, "They have this special trait where they take responsibility for their past in the future, not now. 9/11…where was Osama Bin Laden located? World Trade Centre bombings of '93, the person who did that, where was the murderer of Daniel Pearl located? 26/11 Mumbai attacks, American nationals also involved…where were those culprits discovered?
" Kwatra quoted remarks of Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif, who had publicly accepted that Pakistan has been nurturing terrorism for the last 30 years and doing "dirty work" for the West. Commenting on recent attacks, Kwatra remarked, "Four terrorists, sponsored by Pakistan, murdered 26 civilians.". In no universe are you going to give terrorists a free pass like that, that's what we did yesterday. We've made a very measured, calibrated, proportionate response to these factories, to the integrated facilities which they operate out of Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. The entire world is grateful for that – that India is responding.
Our attacks essentially were about bringing accountability to the terrorists and justice for the victims.”
He ended by saying, "When we attacked, our assumption was that we did what we set out to do ourselves with regard to the terrorists. From our point of view, we had brought a certain finality to it, but it was subject to whether Pakistan had brought finality to it. Pakistan decided to escalate it further. Now we are duty-bound to respond to that," the Ambassador asserted.
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