Calls claim of role in school attack ‘despicable’
WASHINGTON: India has said that a supposedly “new Pakistan” on display at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) is “cast in the mould of the old” and dismissed as “despicable” and “preposterous” Pakistani foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi’s insinuation on Saturday linking India to the 2014 terrorist attack on a school at Peshawar in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Qureshi, who spoke at UNGA after external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, accused India of sponsoring “terrorism and aggression against all its neighbours” and stalling peace efforts citing “flimsy” reasons. He also blamed India for fomenting terrorism in Pakistan and in the region, rendering South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation ineffective and violating human rights in Kashmir.
India exercised its right of reply to hit back.
“This morning my delegation came to this august Assembly to listen attentively to the new foreign minister of Pakistan outline the vision of a ‘New Pakistan’,” said Eenam Gambhir, a counsellor at India’s permanent UN mission. “What we heard is a ‘New Pakistan’ cast in the mould of the old.”
Gambhir pointed out several “baseless” charges in Qureshi’s speech.