Pakistan
Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 12:40 pm
India has been ramping up rhetoric against Pakistan lately.
Reuters
Reuters
DW (Deutsche Welle)India began a campaign to isolate Pakistan at the United Nations on Monday, telling the 193-member General Assembly it was time to identify nations who nurture, peddle and export terrorism and isolate them if they don't join the global fight.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said the arrest of Pakistani Bahadur Ali was "living proof of Pakistan's complicity in crossborder terror." India has said Ali confessed that he was trained by the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant group.
"But when confronted with such evidence, Pakistan remains in denial. It persists in the belief that such attacks will enable it to obtain the territory it covets," she said on the final day of the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations.
"My firm advice to Pakistan is: abandon this dream. Let me state unequivocally that Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India and will always remain so," Swaraj said.
India accuses Pakistan of having a role in a September 18 raid on Uri army base in Kashmir, one of the deadliest attacks in the Himalayan region that has been divided since 1947 and lies at the heart of the nuclear-armed neighbors' rivalry. Pakistan denies any role in the attack.
On Wednesday, India's Foreign Ministry announced that Modi would not participate in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit, to be held in November in Islamabad.
"Increasing cross-border terrorist attacks in the region and growing interference in the internal affairs of member states by one country have created an environment that is not conducive to the successful holding of the 19th SAARC Summit," a ministry statement said.
"In the prevailing circumstances, the Government of India is unable to participate in the proposed summit in Islamabad," it added.
Bangladesh has also boycotted the summit, and there are reports that Afghanistan and Bhutan are unwilling to participate.
"Islamabad is facing a serious foreign policy crisis since the attack on an Indian army base in Uri, Kashmir. With India, Bangladesh and other major countries pulling out of the SAARC summit, it is definitely a major embarrassment for Pakistan," Ali K. Chishti, a Karachi-based security and defense analyst, told DW.
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New Delhi and Islamabad have been engaged in a war of words since the killing of separatist Kashmiri leader Burhan Wani on July 8. Protests against Indian rule in Kashmir and clashes between separatists and soldiers have claimed over 70 lives. Life in the capital, Srinagar, and parts of the valley has been paralyzed by these protests and a curfew imposed by the state government.
On September 18, suspected militants killed at least 17 Indian soldiers and wounded 30 in India-administered Kashmir. Heavily armed militants launched an early morning raid on the Indian army's 12th brigade infantry base housing hundreds of soldiers in Uri, west of Srinagar, the Indian military said. All four gunmen were killed by Indian troops.
The Indian army said the rebels had infiltrated the Indian part of Kashmir from Pakistan. Lt. Gen. Ranbir Singh, the army's director general of military operations, said the initial investigations suggested that the militants belonged to the Pakistan-based group Jaish-e-Mohammad, which has been active in Kashmir for over a decade.