Exercise of Right of Reply by India to Pakistan’s Statement at the CD Plenary held on January 21, 2021

Mr. President,

I am taking the floor to exercise India’s right of reply to respond to the blatant abuse of this august forum, once again by Pakistan today. Pakistan has made it a habit of abusing the sanctity of every UN forum by spreading falsehoods and recycled lies. However, despite its desperate efforts, the world is able to see through its deceit. It is time to hold Pakistan to account and not let it misuse UN platforms for spreading disinformation, hate and incite violence.

Mr. President,

2.  Pakistan has again made a failed attempt to present baseless fabrications against India. As a responsible State, India strictly abides by its obligations under international treaties and needs no advice from a country, which has a proven track record of illicit export of nuclear material and technology. India’s security concerns are not confined to a region and, therefore, India has always approached these issues in a global context.

3.  Pakistan has also made a number of futile and unsubstantiated allegations against India, including in relation to Jammu and Kashmir. These do not merit a response, as they pertain to matters internal to India.

4.  As an epiccenter of terrorism, Pakistan is the biggest destabilizing force in the world. It has spurned the call of the Secretary General for global ceasefire by sponsoring cross border terrorism.  It has broken the principles UN stands for. While Pakistan’s Permanent Representative speaks about peace and security here, his Prime Minister glorifies Osama Bin Ladin as a ‘martyr’. Pakistan has become the epitome of duplicity.   Prime Minister Imran Khan’s 2019 UNGA address is quite vivid in our memory when he pulled all stops exceeding the time limit to demonstrate nuclear brinkmanship, threatening the international community with nuclear blackmail and glorified terrorism and violence, the only characteristics which define his country and its leadership.  He proved once again that Pakistan is the biggest threat to international peace and security.

Mr. President,

5. In contrast to India’s constructive approach on disarmament matters, we all know who has blocked the negotiations on FMCT on several occasions, including in 2009, when the Conference on Disarmament adopted a consensus Programme of Work. Having willingly joined the consensus on the Programme of Work, Pakistan made an absolute mockery of the world and this body by soon taking a complete U-turn and blocking any work by the CD. All of us continue to suffer because of such irresponsible behaviour by Pakistan.

Mr. President,

6.The Conference on Disarmament has just adopted its agenda dealing with global issues relating to disarmament and international security. It is not the forum to address bilateral or regional issues. As India has made clear several times, regional security issues have no place in the considerations by the Conference on Disarmament.

7.     The CD should not be distracted by the Pakistan's nefarious and vicious designs and should reject its efforts to politicize its work and derail it from its mandate.

8.  Since I have already said, what I need to say, I will not take the floor again to glorify them with a response and spend any more time on this issue, out of respect for the work of the CD under your able leadership and guidance.

Thank you.