UNITED NATIONS:Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, permanent representative of Pakistan to the United Nations, has called for addressing terrorism without “double standards and political agenda” as he drew attention to the brutal oppression in Indian occupied Kashmir and Palestine, stressing: “Occupation cannot be dressed up as counter-terrorism.”

“We must clearly distinguish between terrorism and the legitimate struggle of peoples against foreign occupation and for exercising their right to self-determination,” Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, permanent representative of Pakistan to the United Nations, told the UN Security Council on Wednesday.

Speaking in a debate on ‘Threats to international peace & security caused by terrorist acts’, he also highlighted that Pakistan, which has been in the forefront of the fight against terrorism, was standing firm against ISIL/Daesh and its affiliates — the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and its Majeed Brigade.

These terrorist groups, the Pakistani envoy added, were actively collaborating in Afghanistan and the region, sharing resources, information and physical space to carry out attacks against Pakistan.

Indeed, at the outset of the debate, Vladimir Voronkov, Under-Secretary-General for Counter-Terrorism and Head of the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism, said, that ISIL-Da’esh in Afghanistan “represents one of the most serious threats to Central Asia and beyond”. The group remains a “volatile and complex” threat, with its affiliates showing resilience despite the deaths of key leaders, he said.

In his remarks, the Pakistani envoy also underscored the need to address “state terrorism.”

“The situations in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir and the Occupied Palestinian Territories are the starkest examples where collective punishments against civilian populations, widespread grave violations of human rights, forced demographic changes and fabricated counter-terrorism narratives and unlawful actions are being deployed by the occupation forces to prolong and sustain the illegal occupations and undermine and deny the legitimate right to self-determination of the populations of these territories,” he added.

Noting that the UN Secretary-General report describes the situation in Afghanistan as “precarious”, Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad said, “Indeed terrorism within and from Afghanistan is the single most potent threat to that country, to the region, and the world.”

For Pakistan, he said, the threat was grave and immediate from the TTP, which has nearly 6,000 fighters who operate from Afghan soil bordering the country. “There is credible evidence of collaboration between the TTP and BLA and the Majeed Brigade, including sharing of terrorist training camps, that has targeted our strategic infrastructure, economic projects in Pakistan, and most tragically our people,” he pointed out.

“And our principal adversary in the region is active in sponsoring terrorism in Pakistan. It bankrolls and supports terrorist proxies, and carries out extra territorial assassinations that have in fact gone global,” Ambassador Asim Iftikhar said, without actually naming India.

” Worse still, its (India’s) blatant aggression against my country on the night of 6-7 May this year, in violation of our sovereignty and international law, under the false pretext of counter-terrorism, deliberately and indiscriminately targeted civilian population and infrastructure, resulting in the martyrdom of 54 innocent Pakistani nationals, including 15 children, some of them infants, and 13 women,” he added.

“When state terrorism masquerades as counter-terrorism, international peace is often the first casualty,” the Pakistani envoy commented. “This Council should not look away.”

Terrorism today is not just on the battlefield; it is online, it is algorithm-driven, it is financed through digital shadows, he said, emphasizing, “we must respond, with clarity and conviction and through a holistic approach.”

Among the steps he listed was to prioritize addressing the root causes of terrorism; deal with state terrorism; bring in changes to the sanctions regimes to incorporate new and emerging threats and end the dangerous stigmatization of Islam and Muslims as terrorism is a global phenomenon and cannot and should not be associated with any religion, nationality, civilization or ethnic group, and regulate new tools of terror, and strengthen cooperation – from INTERPOL to national law enforcement – to choke off the digital arteries of terrorist networks.

“We can defeat terrorism by fighting it together and fighting it justly,” Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad said in conclusion.