Osama Bin Laden hosts shouldn't sermonise: EAM S Jaishankar at UN

New Delhi, December 15

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In a severe putdown, External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar countered his Pakistani counterpart Bilawal Bhutto Zardari at a UN Security Council debate by stating that states that host Osama Bin Laden and attack a neighbouring Parliament do not have the credentials to sermonise.

Editorial: Straight talk at UN

Jaishankar was responding to Bilawal raking up Kashmir and calling it an “unfinished agenda”.

The minister said the credibility of the UN depended on its effective response to the key challenges of our time, be it pandemic, climate change, conflicts or terrorism. “While searching for solutions, our discourse must never accept the normalisation of such threats. The question of justifying what the world regards as unacceptable should not even arise.”

“That certainly applies to state sponsorship of cross-border terrorism. Nor can hosting Osama Bin Laden and attacking a neighbouring Parliament serve as credentials to sermonise before this council,” he said. Earlier in his main statement, he had also obliquely criticised China when he stated, “On the challenge of terrorism, even as the world is coming together with a more collective response, multilateral platforms are being misused to justify and protect perpetrators.” This was a reference to China blocking joint Indo-US proposals to internationally sanction five Pak-based terrorists.

In an indirect reference to Bhutto’s remarks on J&K, he had stated, “Multilateral solutions under the umbrella of the Security Council offer the most effective approach to promoting peace and resolving conflicts. Parties to a dispute cannot advocate multilateral process one day, multilateral reforms one day and insist on bilateral avenues the next and ultimately impose unilateral actions.”