At UN Security Council, India, US take on Pakistan

Amidst tensions along the borders, India and Pakistan clashed at the United Nations. While India asked Pakistan to change its "mindset" of differentiating between "good and bad terrorists", the Islamabad representative raked up the issue of Indian death-row prisoner Kulbhushan Jadhav. India and the United States jointly targeted Pakistan at the UN Security Council for providing safe havens to terrorists. 

Indian Ambassador to the UN, Syed Akbaruddin, urged the UN Security Council to focus on challenges posed by terrorism emanating from the safe havens from across the border. In response, Pakistani representative Maleeha Lodhi raised the case of Jadhav.

"Those who talk of changing mindset need to look within, at their own record of subversion against my country as our capture of an Indian spy has proven beyond doubt," Lodhi said.

Akbaruddin said India remains committed to working closely with its regional and international partners to bring peace, security, stability, and prosperity in Afghanistan. "There is a common Afghan saying that roughly translates as 'If water is muddied downstream, don't waste your time filtering it; better to go upstream to clean it," the Indian envoy said during a special meeting on Afghanistan. Underlining that support for voices of peace in Afghanistan alone is not enough, he called for addressing the challenges posed by cross-border terrorism emanating from safe havens and sanctuaries to the region and especially to Afghanistan. "If we do so, the decay, which has been inflicted on Afghanistan, can be made reversible," he added. "It is with this in mind that our Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his visit to Afghanistan on December 24, 2015 to inaugurate the Parliament building, stopped over in Lahore," he said.

But he lamented that the visit was followed by a heinous and barbaric terrorist attack on the Pathankot airbase on January 1, 2016. "These mindsets differentiate between good and bad terrorists. These mindsets refuse to see reason in peace. They are mindsets that are reluctant to join hands in moving the region forward to build a shared future for our people and our youth. These mindsets, Mr President, need to change," Akbaruddin said.
At the meeting, the United States also urged Pakistan not to give sanctuary to "terrorist organisations". US Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan said Washington can't work with Pakistan if it continues to give sanctuary to terrorist organisations and needs to stop this and join efforts to resolve the Afghan conflict.

Lodhi countered that Afghanistan and its partners, especially the US, need to address "challenges inside Afghanistan rather than shift the onus for ending the conflict onto others". She demanded that the Trump administration address safe havens inside Afghanistan and its income from the narcotics trade.