Pakistan calls India’s recent threats to strike again a “dangerous delusion” at the UN.
Despite its “humiliating” defeat in the conflict in May, a senior Pakistani diplomat called attention to India’s ongoing threats to attack Pakistan once more Friday, telling the UN that the Indian outrage was contemptuous of the global community’s desire for peace, stability, and risk reduction.
Speaking before the First Committee of the UN General Assembly, which handles disarmament and international security issues, Ambassador Bilal Ahmad claimed that India’s unprovoked military attack against Pakistan in May, which used fighter planes, dual-capable missiles, and autonomous loitering munitions in violation of the UN Charter and international law, had once again brought South Asia to the verge of collapse.
Ambassador Ahmad, Pakistan’s permanent envoy to the UN in Geneva, stated that this was the first time that a nuclear-armed state had ever used such capabilities against another.
He said that with a precise response, Pakistan used its right to self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter, taking down seven Indian aircraft and compelling India to request a ceasefire, which was aided by US President Donald Trump and backed by a number of other friendly nations.
The Pakistani envoy stated, “Despite this humiliating loss, the Indian leadership continues to characterize these careless acts as the ‘new normal’ in South Asia, promising to attack Pakistan once more, whenever it pleases, on any pretext it can create.”
Regarding this, he noted that Indian political and military elites openly discuss “changing geography” and “erasing Pakistan from the map,” even as recently as last week, engaging in the perilous illusion that one nuclear-armed state can easily wipe another off the face of the planet.
He questioned, “Is this ‘new abnormal’ acceptable in a region where two nuclear-armed states coexist?”
He added that since the last official discussions on nuclear and conventional confidence-building measures took place more than ten years ago, India has continued to avoid bilateral dialogue on nuclear and missile restraint as well as risk-reduction measures, citing its “conduct unbecoming of a responsible custodian of nuclear weapons.”
“Since then, emboldened by its perceived military and technological asymmetry, India has treated dialogue not as a responsibility, but as an instrument of coercion and leverage.”
According to UN Security Council resolutions, Ambassador Bilal Ahmad stated that Pakistan is prepared for a thorough, result-oriented, and composite engagement with India on all unresolved problems, including the Jammu and Kashmir dispute.
He informed the international delegates that “our proposal on a Strategic Restraint Regime (SRR) in the region for avoidance of a mutually debilitating arms race also remains on the table.”
The Pakistani envoy noted that the conflict in Gaza has been a stain on the international community’s collective conscience and that the use of unilateral force is becoming more common.
According to him, Pakistan is happy that an agreement has been reached on the first phase and hopes that it would result in a long-term truce and peace.
According to Ambassador Ahmad, new domains are being weaponized, destabilizing technologies are being created, and nuclear arsenals are being updated on a worldwide basis.
“The last bilateral arms control agreement is now scheduled to expire early next year, demonstrating the systematic dismantling of the arms control architecture.”
He advocated for a long-lasting and just international framework for peace and security in this regard.
The idea for a treaty that would merely forbid the manufacturing of fissile materials was opposed by the Pakistani envoy, who claimed that by leaving out from its purview many metric tons of existing stocks that might be used to create hundreds of new nuclear bombs, the pact would only serve to maintain current asymmetries.
“Proposals that are free for their supporters but ignore the justifiable security requirements of others will not succeed.”