Pakistan dismissed India’s condemnation of its Afghanistan strikes on Wednesday. It called the operations legitimate and threw the accusation back at New Delhi, saying India is the one funding terrorism from Afghan soil.
The response came from Tahir Andrabi, spokesperson for Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, after reporters asked him about a statement India put out June 29. Pakistan had acted “legitimately, with precision and proportion” against terrorist infrastructure in Afghanistan, he said.
He called India’s charge baseless, then went on the offensive. Andrabi accused India of a long record of subverting its neighbors’ sovereignty in breach of the U.N. Charter, and of denying Kashmiris the right to self-determination in Jammu and Kashmir.
Pakistan had acted “legitimately, with precision and proportion” against terrorist infrastructure in Afghanistan. — Tahir Andrabi, spokesperson, Pakistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Pakistan went further still. It said India has supported and sponsored terrorist groups that operate out of Afghanistan against Pakistan, in defiance of U.N. Security Council sanctions, and branded India a regional spoiler. No evidence accompanied the claims, and India has not commented on them.
Pakistan would keep taking whatever steps it needed, within international law, to protect its people, Andrabi said.
India had opened the exchange two days earlier. Its Ministry of External Affairs called the strikes a “blatant act of aggression” and an attack on Afghanistan’s sovereignty, saying they killed a number of civilians, women and children among them.
New Delhi offered condolences to the affected Afghan families and repeated its support for Afghanistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
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