EXTERNAL Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar reiterated India’s firm stance against terrorism and nuclear intimidation, asserting that New Delhi will not be deterred by concerns over Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal in responding to cross-border terror attacks. In a strongly worded statement during an interview with Newsweek at its headquarters in One World Trade Centre near the 9/11 Memorial in Manhattan, Jaishankar said that India would not give a “free pass” to either terrorists or the States backing them and that nuclear threats would not prevent India from acting in its national interest. “We are very clear there will be no impunity for terrorists, that we will not deal with them any longer as proxies and spare the government which supports and finances and, in many ways, motivates them. We will not allow nuclear blackmail to prevent us from responding,” Jaishankar said. The EAM directly addressed the longstanding global cautionary view that conflict between India and Pakistan must be carefully handled due to the nuclear capabilities of both nations.

 

“We’ve also heard this for too long -- that both India and Pakistan are nuclear countries, and therefore, the other guy will come and do horrible things, but you mustn’t do anything because it gets the world worried,” Jaishankar said. “Now, we are not going to fall for that. If he is going to come and do things, we are going to go there and also hit the people who did this,” he added, drawing applause from the audience. “So no yielding to nuclear blackmail, no impunity to terrorists, no more free pass that they are proxies. And we will do what we have to do to defend our people,” he said. “We believe that terrorism is actually a threat to everyone. No country should use it as an instrument to further its policies because, at the end of the day, it comes to bite everyone,” he said, adding that the message to the world is that there should be zero tolerance for terrorism.

 

Jaishankar gives firsthand account to refute Trump’s claims on ceasefire: With his firsthand account of the talks between New Delhi and Washington, External Affairs Minister (EAM) S. Jaishankar has dismissed the claims of US President Donald Trump that he used trade to force India and Pakistan to accept a ceasefire. He said on Monday that he was with Prime Minister Narendra Modi when US Vice President JD Vance spoke to him by phone, and there was no linking of trade and ceasefire as far as India was concerned. “I can tell you that I was in the room when Vice President Vance spoke to Prime Minister Modi on the night of May 9, saying that the Pakistanis would launch a very massive assault on India,” he said. “We did not accept certain things,” he said, “and the Prime Minister was impervious to what the Pakistanis were threatening to do.” “On the contrary, he (PM Modi) indicated that there would be a response from us,” he said, giving the chronology of interactions. “The Pakistanis did attack us massively that night, (and) we responded very quickly,” he recalled.

 

The next contact with Washington was between the EAM and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Pahalgam attack was act of economic warfare: EAM Jaishankar: THE Pahalgam terror attack was an act of economic warfare meant to destroy tourism in Kashmir, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said, asserting that India has made it clear that it will not allow nuclear blackmail to prevent it from responding to terror emanating from Pakistan. India has had a string of terrorist attacks over the years emanating from Pakistan and in the wake of the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack, there was a sentiment in the country that “enough is enough,” Jaishankar said on Monday. Jaishankar said that the Pahalgam attack “was an act of economic warfare. It was meant to destroy tourism in Kashmir, which was the mainstay of the economy. It was also meant to provoke religious violence because people were asked to identify their faith before they were killed.” India expect Quad partners to understand its position on terrorism: EAM Jaishankar: The victims and perpetrators of terrorism must never be equated and India expects its Quad partners to understand that the country has every right to defend its people against the menace, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Tuesday.