Pakistan and India are trading accusations of state-sponsored terrorism against each other at the UN General Assembly in New York.
In the latest exchange, Pakistan responded angrily to accusations by India that Islamabad supports terrorists, saying that India itself is the “mother of terrorism” in South Asia.
The charge was made by Pakistan’s ambassador to the United Nations, Maleeha Lodhi, after Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj told the UN General Assembly on September 23 that Pakistan was a “terrorist factory” and labeled the country “Terroristan.”
India accuses Islamabad of training and arming Islamic militants who infiltrate Indian-administered Kashmir from Pakistan’s territory in order to carry out attacks against Indian security forces.
Pakistan denies the claim.
Lodhi late on September 23 said India is accusing Pakistan of terrorism in order to divert world attention from “brutalities” she said are being committed by security forces in Indian-administered Kashmir against the region’s predominantly Muslim population.
The Indian foreign minister earlier in the day told the UN General Assembly that India is recognized as an “information-technology superpower in the world” while Pakistan is recognized “only as the preeminent export factory for terror.”
"We produced scholars, doctors, engineers,” Sushma said. “What have you produced? You have produced terrorists.”
Sushma’s angry rhetoric came in response to allegations made a day earlier by Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi.
Abbasi told the UN General Assembly on September 22 that India was a state sponsor of terrorism and routinely violates human rights in Indian-administered Kashmir.
"A country that has been the world's greatest exporter of havoc, death, and inhumanity became a champion of hypocrisy by preaching about humanity from this podium,” Sushma said about Abasi’s speech.
Both India and Pakistan claim Kashmir and have fought two of their three wars over the divided Himalayan region since independence from British colonial rule in 1947.