Sushma says India created institutions of excellence, Pakistan created ‘terror factories’

NEW DELHI: Sushma Swaraj on Saturday unleashed a very sharp and strong attack on Pakistan and asked its leaders to introspect why India is recognised as global IT superpower while Islamabad is infamous as “export factory for terror”.

In a hard-hitting speech at the UN General Assembly, Sushma said, “We established scientific and technical institutions, which are the pride of the world. But what has Pakistan offered to the world and indeed to its own people apart from terrorism? We produced scholars, doctors, engineers. What have you produced? You have produced terrorists. Doctors save people from death; terrorists send them to death.”

Taking Pakistan Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi’s allegations head-on, Sushma said that “champion of hypocrisy is preaching about humanity from this podium”.

“Look who’s talking!” A country that has been the world’s greatest exporter of havoc, death and inhumanity became a champion of hypocrisy by preaching about humanity from this podium,” said Sushma Swaraj.

“Evil is evil. Let us accept that terrorism is an existentialist danger to humankind. There is absolutely no justification for this barbaric violence. Let us display our new commitment by reaching agreement on the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism this year itself,” the external affairs minister added.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi also hailed Sushma Swaraj for her speech at the UN General Assembly saying she delivered a strong message on the dangers of terrorism.

Lashing out at Pakistan for sponsoring terrorism, she said, “India has risen despite being the principal destination of Pakistan’s nefarious export of terrorism. There have been many governments under many parties during 70 years of Indian freedom, for we have been a sustained democracy. Every government has done its bit for India’s development. We have marched ahead, consistently, without pause, in education, health and across the range of human welfare.”

On PM Abbasi’s statement that Pakistan’s founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah had bequeathed a foreign policy based on peace and friendship, she said, “I would like to remind him that while it remains open to question whether Jinnah Sahab actually advocated such principles, what is beyond doubt is that India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has, from the moment he took his oath of office, offered the hand of peace, and friendship. Pakistan’s Prime Minister must answer why his nation spurned this offer.”

She further said that the Pakistan PM has forgotten that under the Shimla Agreement and the Lahore Declaration India and Pakistan resolved that they would settle all outstanding issues bilaterally.

“The reality is that Pakistan’s politicians remember everything, manipulate memory into a convenience. They are masters at ‘forgetting’ facts that destroy their version,” she said.

The External Affairs minister also mentioned that on December 9, 2015, when she was in Islamabad for the Heart of Asia conference, a decision was made by Nawaz Sharif, then still PM, that dialogue between the two countries should be renewed and named it a “Comprehensive Bilateral Dialogue”.

“The word ‘bilateral’ was used consciously to remove any confusion or doubt about the fact that the proposed talks would be between our two nations and only between our two nations, without any third-party present. And he must answer why that proposal withered, because Pakistan is responsible for the aborting that peace process,” she asserted.