India's UN envoy delivers sharp rebuke to Pakistan at Security Council debate

India's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador P Harish, launched a scathing attack on Pakistan during a Security Council open debate, pointing out how Islamabad has an "obsessive focus on harming India" and labelling it the "global epicentre of terror".

Responding to Pakistan's references to Jammu and Kashmir, Ambassador Harish declared, "The Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh are an integral and inalienable part of India. They were, are, and will always remain so." He added that Pakistan's "unwarranted reference" to the region "attests to its obsessive focus on harming India and its people".

The Indian Ambassador criticised Pakistan, a current non-permanent Security Council member, saying, "A serving non-permanent Security Council Member that chooses to further this obsession in all meetings and platforms of the UN in pursuit of its divisive agenda cannot be expected to fulfil its designated responsibilities and obligations."

On the Indus Waters Treaty, which India placed in abeyance earlier this year following the April 2025 Pahalgam terror attack that killed 26 civilians, Amb Harish defended the move. "India had entered into the Indus Waters Treaty, 65 years ago, in good faith, in a spirit of goodwill and friendship," he said.

"Throughout these six and a half decades, Pakistan has violated the spirit of the Treaty by inflicting three wars and thousands of terror attacks on India."

He cited the Pahalgam terror attack as the latest example: "The most recent of which was the Pahalgam terror attack in April 2025, which involved religion-based targeted killings of 26 innocent civilians by Pakistan-sponsored terrorists." Stating that the treaty would remain on hold "until Pakistan... credibly and irrevocably ends its support for cross-border and all other forms of terrorism."

In a pointed remark on Pakistan's domestic politics, India's Permanent Representative said, "Pakistan of course has a unique way of respecting the will of its people, by jailing a Prime Minister, by banning the ruling political party and by letting its armed forces engineer a constitutional coup through the 27th amendment and giving life-time immunity to its Chief of Defence Forces."

Separately, Ambassador Harish called for urgent UN Security Council reforms, describing the body's current structure as "frozen in time". Quoting UN Secretary-General António Guterres, he said, "we can’t create a future fit for our grandchildren with systems built for our grandparents."

He urged time-bound, text-based negotiations to expand membership in both permanent and non-permanent categories, emphasising, “reforming the Security Council to make it fit-for-purpose to tackle contemporary challenges is an urgent global imperative.”