Referring to the exhibition at the UN highlighting the devastating toll of terrorist attacks across the globe, including those perpetrated by Pakistan-based terror entities, Jaishankar said India believes that ‘terrorism is actually a threat to everyone, that no country should use it as an instrument to further its policies because, at the end of the day, it comes back to bite everyone.He stressed that the message to the world has to be that there should be zero tolerance for terrorism, that there should be no circumstances, no excuse, no justification under which a country would allow, support, finance or sponsor terrorist acts.He said India has been dealing with terrorism emanating from Pakistan for several decades but it actually started from the time of the country’s independence in 1947 when within a few months, terrorists were sent into Kashmir and were described as proxies and tribal invaders.”And then soon enough, the Pakistani Army followed. So we have battled terrorism, really intensive, for the last four decades and we’ve had some horrific cases,” he said, as he referred to the 2001 Parliament and 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.During a Q&A session that followed the conversation, Jaishankar was asked about President Donald Trump’s claim that he used trade to stop the recent conflict between India and Pakistan and whether that has affected trade negotiations between 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.
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