Launching a blistering attack on Pakistan, External Affairs minister Sushma Swaraj recalled how the country had "betrayed" even their "friend" US by hiding 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden.
While speaking at the annual United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) session on Saturday, she compared the 9/11 terror attacks in NYC and 26/11 terror attacks on Mumbai, saying while the perpetrator of the former was brought to a logical end, the planner and perpetrator of the latter — Hafiz Sayeed — roams free, and even addresses elections rallies.
Swaraj identified climate change and terrorism as the biggest threats to humanity.
She even warned that the current UN architecture would fail like its earlier incarnation, the League of Nations, lest it wakes up to new realities.
Highlighting Islamabad's verbal duplicity, she defended cancelling a meeting with her Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi. In perhaps last speech at the UNGA on behalf of the current Modi government, she said several Indian governments in the past including had also made several attempts to talk to Pakistan, but its actions foiled such initiatives. "Terror has not spared any country. It is unfortunate that terrorism is reaching India from our neighbour.
Our neighbour's expertise is not restricted to spawning grounds for terrorism; it is also an expert in trying to mask malevolence with verbal duplicity," she said.
Without naming her Pakistani counterpart, who has been accusing India of sabotaging the process of talks at different meetings in the past few days in New York, Swaraj said the talks halted only because of their behaviour. "India wanted to hold talks but Pakistan attacked police officers in Jammu and Kashmir," she said.
She also attempted to puncture Pakistan's propaganda on human rights violations, saying the country was siding with those killing people day in and out by issuing postage stamps to decorate them.
"Who can be a greater transgressor of human rights than a terrorist?" she asked, "Those who take innocent human lives in pursuit of war by other means are defenders of inhuman behaviour, not of human rights. Pakistan glorifies killers; it refuses to see the blood of innocents."
Speaking in Hindi, she didn't spare the global community either, reminding that in 1996, India had proposed a draft document on Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT) at the UN. "Till today, that draft remains a draft because we cannot agree on a common language. On one hand, we want to fight terrorism; on the other, we cannot define it," she said lucidly.
Stressing on the need to restructure the UN, she said the world body much accept that it needs fundamental reform. "Reform cannot be cosmetic," she warned, "We need to change the institution's head and heart to make it compatible with contemporary reality. Reform must begin today; tomorrow could be too late."
While congratulating Ma Fernanda Espinosa, an Ecuadorian politician on assuming the position as the President of the 73rd Session of the UNGA, she reminded the audience that the first woman to occupy this eminent chair was an Indian -- Vijayalakshmi Pandit, sister of India's first PM Jawaharlal Nehru. She headed the session in 1953.
The External Affairs Minister also enumerated India's progress towards achieving UN's eight Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by mentioning the many welfare schemes aimed at empowerment of women.
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