Pakistan brings up Kulbhushan Jadhav in UN Security Council debate

Kulbhushan Jadhav

At a high-level Security Council meeting, Pakistan has raised the case of Kulbhushan Jadhav, whom Islamabad has accused of being an Indian spy and given him a death sentence. "Those who speak of changing mindsets (about terrorism) need to look within and their own record of subversion against my country as our capture of an Indian spy has amply demonstrated and proved beyond any shadow of doubt," Pakistan's Permanent Representative Maleeha Lodhi said during Council meeting on Afghanistan. She did not mention his name.

Her statement was response to India's statement in the Council meeting on Afghanistan that India is a victim of the same Pakistani "mindset" that promotes terrorist attacks everyday in Afghanistan. India has denied that Jadhav, a retired navy officer, worked for the government and said that he was abducted by Pakistan from Iran to stage a show-trial.

Denying that Pakistan was giving terrorists a safe haven or support, Lodhi also took a swipe at the US saying it needed a "reality check." The administration of President Donald Trump suspended security aid to Pakistan this month citing its provision of sanctuaries and assistance to terrorists attacking Afghanistan. Jadhav was captured by Pakistan in 2016 and was sentenced to death by a military court martial last year. India appealed to the International Court of Justice against his sentence and the court has stayed his execution.

Lodhi was originally listed to address the Council two spots before India's Permanent Representative Syed Akbaruddin, but she chose to speak later and amended her prepared speech with the response to him. Akbaruddin said that after Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Lahore in December 2015 in a bid to promote peace with Pakistan, "a heinous and barbaric terrorist attack" was launched on the Pathankot airbase in a week's time by "the very same mindsets which attack the spirit of Afghanistan every day."

"These mindsets differentiate between 'good' and bad terrorists," he said. "These mindsets refuse to see reason in peace." "These mindsets,a Akbaruddin declared, "need to change." Lodhi said that Pakistan was against terrorism, being itself a a victim. She blamed the conditions in Afghanistan and the drug trade, which she said brings terrorists $400 million every year, for the insurgency and asserted that they didn't need outside support or sanctuaries because "over 40 per cent of the country is under insurgent control, contested or ungoverned."

"Afghanistan and its partners, especially the US, need to address these challenged inside Afghanistan rather than shift the onus for ending the conflict on to others," she said. "Those who imagine sanctuaries outside (Afghanistan) need a reality check," she added.

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