ISLAMABAD: Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar on Wednesday once again described India’s relationship with Pakistan as an “exception” among its neighbours, accusing Islamabad of “openly supporting terrorism for decades”.
Pakistan strongly rejected what it termed irresponsible and baseless assertions, saying India was attempting to divert attention from its own troubling record as a neighbour that promotes terrorism and fuels regional instability.
Responding to a question from The News, Foreign Office Spokesperson Tahir Hussain Andrabi said India’s documented involvement in promoting terrorist activities in the region, particularly in Pakistan, was well known. He cited the case of Kulbhushan Jadhav, a serving Indian Navy commander arrested in Pakistan, as a clear example of organised, state-sponsored terrorism directed against the country. The spokesperson also pointed to recurring incidents of extraterritorial killings, sabotage carried out through proxies, and covert support to terrorist networks, describing them as part of a consistent pattern rooted in the extremist Hindutva ideology and its violent proponents.
Andrabi, who also serves as Additional Foreign Secretary, reiterated that India continues its illegal and violent military occupation of Jammu and Kashmir. He said Pakistan remains steadfast in extending full political, moral and diplomatic support to the Kashmiri people in their just struggle to realise their right to self-determination, as enshrined in relevant UN Security Council resolutions.
Responding to another query, the spokesperson said the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) is an international agreement concluded in good faith and at considerable cost. Any unilateral violation of the treaty by India, he warned, would undermine regional stability and seriously call into question New Delhi’s credibility as a state that claims to respect international legal obligations. Pakistan, he added, would take all necessary measures to safeguard its legitimate rights under the treaty.
Earlier in the day, speaking in Luxembourg, Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said no other country in India’s neighbourhood had pursued policies comparable to Pakistan’s against a neighbouring state. “For decades, you had these training camps — not secret training camps; they’re all in the big cities of Pakistan, very open — where the state and the military support terrorism, and they try to normalise it as though it’s their right to do it,” he said. He added that such claims no longer carried credibility. “Nobody buys it anymore. Everybody knows that these are people who are supporting the state,” he remarked, describing it as an “unpalatable reality” that India could not ignore while shaping its foreign policy.
Jaishankar said India must engage with each neighbour based on its conduct. “Those who are willing to work with us and be helpful, positive, we’ll have to deal with them in that way. Those who do the kind of things that Pakistan does, we’ll have to deal with it in a different way,” he said, stressing that New Delhi’s approach would remain grounded in realism rather than rhetoric.
The Indian foreign minister also appeared critical of the international scrutiny India has faced in the wake of its military action against Pakistan in May 2025, referred to by New Delhi as ‘Operation Sindoor’. Without naming the United States or other countries, he criticised what he described as Western hypocrisy, saying that while some Western capitals expressed concern over rising tensions, their responses were selective, driven by self-interest, and often accompanied by what he termed “free advice” to India.
