Operation Sindoor
New York/Washington: Operation Sindoor conveyed to the world with great clarity that India will act against perpetrators of terrorist acts, a response to the scourge in line with the UN Security Council stance on bringing the perpetrators of the Pahalgam attacks to justice, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Wednesday.
“What is important for us in the Quad statement, as also the statement which the Security Council had issued on April 25, is that the perpetrators of terrorism must be held accountable. They must be brought to justice,” Jaishankar said during a press conference in Washington.
“And that’s important because we then have to communicate to the world that what we did… on May 7, the objective of Operation Sindoor is that if there are attacks, if there are terrorist attacks, we will act against the perpetrators, the supporters, the financiers, the enablers. So that message, I think, was conveyed with great clarity,” he said.
A joint statement issued by the Quad Foreign Ministers — Jaishankar, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Foreign Minister of Australia Penny Wong and Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya — had unequivocally condemned all acts of terrorism and violent extremism in all its forms and manifestations, including cross-border terrorism.
The Quad Foreign Ministers condemned in the “strongest terms” the terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam on April 22, which claimed the lives of 25 Indian nationals and one Nepali citizen, while injuring several others.
“We call for the perpetrators, organisers, and financiers of this reprehensible act to be brought to justice without any delay and urge all UN Member States, in accordance with their obligations under international law and relevant UNSCRs (UN Security Council resolutions), to cooperate actively with all relevant authorities in this regard,” the joint statement said.
The UN Security Council press statement had condemned the Pahalgam attack, with members of the Security Council underlining the need to hold perpetrators, organisers, financiers and sponsors of this reprehensible act of terrorism accountable and bring them to justice.
The council members stressed that those responsible for these killings should be held accountable.
India had launched Operation Sindoor targeting terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in retaliation for the Pahalgam attack that killed 26 civilians and for which The Resistance Front (TRF), a front for Pakistan-based terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) had claimed responsibility.
Jaishankar said that he shared with his counterparts, in the Quad as well as globally, the nature of the terrorism challenge that India faces and has confronted over multiple decades, and “that we are very resolved today to respond to it very firmly and that we have the right to defend ourselves”.
Apart from the Quad discussions, Jaishankar said he had a good bilateral meeting with Rubio and the two leaders “essentially did a stock-taking of the last six months” and the path looking ahead.
“This included a discussion on trade and investment, technology, defence and security, energy and on mobility,” he said adding that he had separate meetings with Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth and Energy Secretary Chris Wright.
To a question on the US plan to impose 500 per cent tariff on imports from countries buying Russian oil under a bill by US Senator Lindsey Graham, Jaishankar said that any development happening in the US Congress is of interest to India “if it impacts our interest or could impact our interest”.
The Indian Embassy and officials have been in touch with Graham over the issue, he said. “I think our concerns and our interests on energy security we (have) made conversant to him. So we’ll then have to cross that bridge when we come to it, if we come to it,” Jaishankar said.
