NO NUCLEAR BLACKMAIL

"No yielding to nuclear blackmail, no impunity to terrorists...": Jaishankar reiterates India's stance on terrorism

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External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has said that India is not going to yield to nuclear blackmail, stating that New Delhi will no longer accept that terrorists are proxies and spare the government that supports and finances them. He said terrorists will be treated with "no impunity" and India will do what needs to be done to defend its people.

"We are not going to yield to nuclear blackmail that you know there could be escalation, and therefore we should not do anything," Jaishankar said in an interview to Newsweek in Manhattan.

The External Affairs minister's remarks come nearly two months after the April 22 terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam in which 26 people were killed.

Jaishankar called it an "act of warfare" aimed at destroying tourism in Kashmir, which he said was the mainstay of the economy. He stated that India, after the Pahalgam attack, decided that it could not allow terrorists to function with impunity.

In his Newsweek interview, Jaishankar stated that India's message to the world is that there should be zero tolerance for terrorism and there should be no circumstances under which terrorists' acts should be allowed, supported or financed. He said that India has been a victim of terrorism for the past four decades, and recalled various terrorist attacks, like the 26/11 Mumbai attack and the Parliament attack.