External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has called for urgent fundamental reforms in UN Security Council. Addressing the UN General Assembly, she said, the United Nations must accept that it needs fundamental reform and reform cannot be cosmetic.
Mrs Swaraj stressed the need to change the institution’s head and heart to make both compatible with the contemporary reality.
She also called upon the world body to pass the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT) to end Pakistan sponsored terrorism.
External Affairs Minister said, India had proposed a draft document on CCIT at the UN in 1996 but till today, that draft has remained a draft, because so far a common language has not been agreed upon.
She said, Pakistan’s expertise is not restricted to spawning grounds for terrorism but it is also an expert in trying to mask malevolence with verbal duplicity.
The External Affairs Minister said, while the mastermind of 9/11 Osama Bin Laden was found and brought to justice in Pakistan, the mastermind of 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks Hafiz Saeed is at large in Pakistan and is eulogised and is being allowed to contest elections and is allowed to threaten India openly.
Mrs Swaraj said, in India’s case, terrorism is bred not in some faraway land, but across the border. She said, Pakistan releases postal stamps in the names of terrorists. The Minister said, Pakistan glorifies the killers and refuses to see the blood of innocents.
Mrs Swaraj asked who can be a greater transgressor of human rights than a terrorist and those who take innocent human lives in pursuit of war by other means are defenders of inhuman behaviour, not of human rights.
The Minister said, India has always favoured talks and dialogue with Pakistan but Islamabad has not stopped sponsoring terrorism against it. She said, India is accused of sabotaging the process of talks which is a complete lie.
The Minister said, New Delhi believes that talks are only rational means to resolve the most complex of disputes and talks with Pakistan have begun many times. If they stopped, it was only because of Pakistan’s behaviour.
The Minister said, last year, Pakistan’s representative, using right to reply, displayed some photographs as proof of human rights violations by India. The photographs turned out to be from another country. Similar false accusations have become part of its standard rhetoric.
Even now, after the new government came to power, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi suggesting a meeting between Foreign Ministers in New York which was accepted by India.
But, within hours of acceptance of the talks, news came that terrorists had killed three of Indian jawans. She asked whether this act indicate a desire for dialogue.
The Minister said, existential threats of climate change and terrorism are the biggest challenge before the world.
On climate change, she said developed nations must lift the deprived with financial and technical resources to save the world from the adverse effects of climate change.
Mrs Swaraj said, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India has initiated unprecedented economic and social transformation that will help the country achieve its Sustainable Development Goals much before time.
She said, at the heart of Prime Minister Modi’s transformative vision is an idea that the uplift of any nation is best achieved through the all-round empowerment of women.
She talked about Jan Dhan Yojana, Ujjawala Yojana and recently launched Jan Arogya Programme.
