‘India’s Prime Minister is a terrorist,’ says Pakistan’s foreign minister.

NEW DELHI: The war of words between India and Pakistan has taken an ugly turn with the latter’s foreign minister calling Prime Minister Narendra Modi a “terrorist”.

Pakistan’s foreign minister Khawaja Asif was responding to Union minister Sushma Swaraj’s recent comment at the UN that his country is a “pre-eminent export factory for terror.”
Asif hit back at India in an interview yesterday with Pakistan’s Geo TV.

“At the (UN) General Assembly, Sushma Swaraj accused us of exporting terror, while in fact, it is a terrorist who is Prime Minister of her country, his (the PM’s) hands have the blood of murdered Muslims in Gujarat,” said Asif.
“A terrorist party is ruling India, the RSS rules India,” added Asif.

However, just last week, Asif himself admitted that allowing terrorists like Mumbai attacks mastermind Hafiz Saeed operate in the country with impunity is a “liability” for Pakistan.

“Saeed, LeT, they are a liability, I accept it, but give us time to get rid of them, we don’t have the assets to deal with these liabilities,” said Asif at the Asia Society in New York.

He also laid the blame for the creation of people like Saeed, on the US.

“Don’t blame us for Saeed, these people were your darlings 20 years ago, they were being dined and wined in the White House. Now you say go to hell, Pakistan,” said Asif.

Pakistan has been at the receiving end of a lot of international censure lately. After US President Donald Trump savaged Pakistan in August for providing “safe havens to agents of chaos, violence and terror”, several other countries did the same.

In September, India convinced Japan to condemn Pakistan-based terror groups Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Muhammed (JeM) in an India-Japan joint statement. The 2008 Mumbai terror attacks were masterminded by Saeed and carried out by LeT operatives. And the JeM’s Masood Azhar was the mastermind of last year’s terror attack in Pathankot.

India also got other BRICS countries to name these groups at a summit in China earlier this month. The BRICS statement, called the ‘Xiamen Declaration’, mentioned the Taliban, al-Qaida and the Haqqani Network, in addition to the LeT and the JeM.

Last week, Afghanistan declared at the UN that terror within its borders is the “product of (a) long-standing policy” of Pakistan. Terror’s “roots are located in terrorist sanctuaries and safe havens outside” its borders, it added.