NEW DELHI: External affairs minister S Jaishankar on Tuesday again reiterated in no uncertain terms that India would not yield to nuclear blackmail and that New Delhi was "not going to fall for" the world worrying about the consequences of attacking nuclear-armed Pakistan.
Jaishankar said terrorists would be dealt with "no impunity" and even the government that backs such terror outfits won't be spared.
"We are very clear there will be no impunity for terrorists, that we will not deal with them any longer as proxies and spare the government which supports and finances and in many ways, motivates them. We will not allow nuclear blackmail to prevent us from responding,” Jaishankar said during an interview with Newsweek hosted at the publication’s headquarters at One World Trade Centre near the 9/11 Memorial in Manhattan.
The external affairs minister said, “we've also heard this for too long” that both India and Pakistan are nuclear countries and “therefore the other guy will come and do horrible things, but you mustn't do anything because it gets the world worried".
“Now we are not going to fall for that. If he is going to come and do things, we are going to go there and also hit the people who did this. So no yielding to nuclear blackmail, no impunity to terrorists, no more free pass that they are proxies. And we will do what we have to do to defend our people,” Jaishankar said amid applause from the audience.
Pahalgam attack ' economic warfare '
Jaishankar described the April 22 terror attack in Pahalgam as an act of “economic warfare” intended to destroy tourism in Kashmir .
Referring to a long pattern of cross-border attacks, Jaishankar said there was a sentiment in the country that “enough is enough”.
He pointed out that the Pakistan-based terrorists targeting India do not operate in secrecy, and likened their infrastructure to corporate entities housed openly in urban areas.
“These are terrorist organisations who have the ‘equivalent of their corporate headquarters in the populated towns of Pakistan,’” he said.
“Everybody knows what is the headquarters of organisation A and organisation B and those are the buildings, the headquarters that India destroyed,” he added.
India launched Operation Sindoor in retaliation for the Pahalgam massacre, striking at terror infrastructure inside Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. The Resistance Front (TRF), a proxy of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), had claimed responsibility for the attack. In the operation, the forces hit hotbeds of terror in Pakistan's Bahawalpur and Muridke.
Jaishankar debunks Trump's trade 'warning'
During a Q&A session after the discussion, Jaishankar was asked whether President Donald Trump's claim of using trade to halt the recent India-Pakistan conflict had impacted ongoing trade negotiations between New Delhi and Washington.
“No, I don't think so. I think the trade people are doing what the trade people should be doing, which is negotiate with numbers and lines and products and do their trade-offs. I think they are very professional and very, very focused about it,” Jaishankar said.
He said that there is a national consensus in India that “our dealings with Pakistan are bilateral.
“And in this particular case, I can tell you that I was in the room when Vice President (JD) Vance spoke to Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi on the night of May 9, saying that the Pakistanis would launch a very massive assault on India if we did not accept certain things.
“And the Prime Minister was impervious to what the Pakistanis were threatening to do. On the contrary, he indicated that there would be a response from us. This was the night before and the Pakistanis did attack us massively that night, we responded very quickly thereafter," Jaishankar said.
"And the next morning, Mr (Secretary of State Marco) Rubio called me up and said the Pakistanis were ready to talk. So I can only tell you from my personal experience what happened. The rest I leave to you," he said.
(With inputs from PTI)
Jaishankar said terrorists would be dealt with "no impunity" and even the government that backs such terror outfits won't be spared.
"We are very clear there will be no impunity for terrorists, that we will not deal with them any longer as proxies and spare the government which supports and finances and in many ways, motivates them. We will not allow nuclear blackmail to prevent us from responding,” Jaishankar said during an interview with Newsweek hosted at the publication’s headquarters at One World Trade Centre near the 9/11 Memorial in Manhattan.
The external affairs minister said, “we've also heard this for too long” that both India and Pakistan are nuclear countries and “therefore the other guy will come and do horrible things, but you mustn't do anything because it gets the world worried".
“Now we are not going to fall for that. If he is going to come and do things, we are going to go there and also hit the people who did this. So no yielding to nuclear blackmail, no impunity to terrorists, no more free pass that they are proxies. And we will do what we have to do to defend our people,” Jaishankar said amid applause from the audience.
Pahalgam attack ' economic warfare '
Jaishankar described the April 22 terror attack in Pahalgam as an act of “economic warfare” intended to destroy tourism in Kashmir .
Referring to a long pattern of cross-border attacks, Jaishankar said there was a sentiment in the country that “enough is enough”.
He pointed out that the Pakistan-based terrorists targeting India do not operate in secrecy, and likened their infrastructure to corporate entities housed openly in urban areas.
“These are terrorist organisations who have the ‘equivalent of their corporate headquarters in the populated towns of Pakistan,’” he said.
“Everybody knows what is the headquarters of organisation A and organisation B and those are the buildings, the headquarters that India destroyed,” he added.
India launched Operation Sindoor in retaliation for the Pahalgam massacre, striking at terror infrastructure inside Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. The Resistance Front (TRF), a proxy of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), had claimed responsibility for the attack. In the operation, the forces hit hotbeds of terror in Pakistan's Bahawalpur and Muridke.
Jaishankar debunks Trump's trade 'warning'
During a Q&A session after the discussion, Jaishankar was asked whether President Donald Trump's claim of using trade to halt the recent India-Pakistan conflict had impacted ongoing trade negotiations between New Delhi and Washington.
“No, I don't think so. I think the trade people are doing what the trade people should be doing, which is negotiate with numbers and lines and products and do their trade-offs. I think they are very professional and very, very focused about it,” Jaishankar said.
He said that there is a national consensus in India that “our dealings with Pakistan are bilateral.
“And in this particular case, I can tell you that I was in the room when Vice President (JD) Vance spoke to Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi on the night of May 9, saying that the Pakistanis would launch a very massive assault on India if we did not accept certain things.
“And the Prime Minister was impervious to what the Pakistanis were threatening to do. On the contrary, he indicated that there would be a response from us. This was the night before and the Pakistanis did attack us massively that night, we responded very quickly thereafter," Jaishankar said.
"And the next morning, Mr (Secretary of State Marco) Rubio called me up and said the Pakistanis were ready to talk. So I can only tell you from my personal experience what happened. The rest I leave to you," he said.
(With inputs from PTI)
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