New York, U.S., October 10 (ANI): In a sharp rebuttal delivered at the UN General Assembly’s First Committee, India warned that nuclear weapons must not be treated as “routine instruments of statecraft” and firmly asserted that New Delhi would “not bow to nuclear blackmail.” India exercised its right of reply in response to remarks made by Pakistan.
In a post on X, India’s Permanent Mission to the UN noted that First Secretary Anmol Sher Singh Bedi emphasized that India’s military posture remains purely defensive and is shaped by its own security needs rather than directed against any specific state. Bedi defended India’s actions following the Pahalgam terror attack, which killed 26 civilians, describing New Delhi’s response as “measured, targeted, and non-escalatory” and taken in self-defense.
Addressing cross-border threats, Bedi clearly outlined India’s strategic stance, stating, “First: Any terrorist attack against India will receive a fitting response; Second: India will not bow to nuclear blackmail; Third: India will make no distinction between those who sponsor terrorism and those who mastermind it.”
He further cautioned that using force through non-state actors does not erase a state’s responsibility or diminish India’s right to self-defense.
“Escalation concerns are best judged by conduct, over rhetoric. Nuclear weapons must not be a routine instrument of statecraft. Relying on a nuclear overhang to limit the consequences of sub-conventional activity raises escalation risk, not restraint,” he added.
Pointing to regional instability, Bedi noted that crises in the region typically follow a repetitive cycle of provocation, denial of responsibility and subsequent appeals for restraint once a response has been made. He pointed out that “where those in power are neither elected by nor accountable to the people, crisis becomes an instrument of power and instability becomes useful.”
Turning to bilateral agreements, the Indian diplomat highlighted that the Indus Waters Treaty rested on good faith and goodwill, observing that a state cannot undermine those foundations of trust and still expect the privileges arising from the relationship to remain untouched.
“The Indus Waters Treaty rested on good faith and goodwill. A state cannot undermine that trust and still insist the privileges flowing from it stay untouched,” he said, according to India’s Permanent Mission.
Bedi also recalled the history of the A.Q. Khan network, which contributed to the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1540. He urged all states and responsible suppliers to exercise the highest vigilance in nuclear cooperation and military transfers for their own security.
Reaffirming India’s position, Bedi concluded that while India does not seek conflict and continues to pursue peace with all, “without accountability for reckless actions, peace merely becomes a pause between crises.”
Earlier on Thursday, India, exposing what it described as Islamabad’s duplicity before the international community, stated that Pakistan had lost control of the terrorism it had engineered, which had now returned to threaten its own creators. India said the reality had been openly acknowledged by Pakistani leadership and called for robust global action against state sponsors of terrorism.
“Pakistan has presented itself as a frontline state in combating terrorism and as a victim, while masking the fact that the Frankenstein’s (monster) the Pakistani state has created and lost control over have moved from wreaking havoc in neighbouring countries to doing the same in Pakistan,” Raghoo Puri, a first secretary in India’s UN mission, said on Wednesday, local time.
“This was exposed recently by a provincial chief minister of Pakistan, and may I jog the memory of colleagues to an interview in 2018 by her father and former prime minister of Pakistan, exposing this dark secret,” he stated.
“You cannot run with the hares and hunt with the hounds,” Puri warned. “Reality never works like that.”
Puri was delivering India’s right of reply in response to what India described as an unprovoked tirade against New Delhi by Pakistan’s Deputy Permanent Representative Usman Jadoon during proceedings at the UN General Assembly’s Sixth Committee, which handles legal affairs. (ANI)
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