Tharoor is leading a delegation of Indian parliamentarians to Guyana, Panama, Colombia, Brazil and the US, conveying India’s resolve against terrorism and emphasising Pakistan’s links to terrorism.
The multi-party delegations to different countries will underline that the recent conflict with Pakistan was triggered by the Pahalgam terror attack and not Operation Sindoor, as alleged by Islamabad.
The retaliatory Operation Sindoor launched by India targeted terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
In an interaction with a select group of prominent members of the Indian-American community and individuals from leading media and think-tanks here on Saturday, Tharoor said that India’s message to Pakistan has been clear: “We didn’t want to start anything.”
“We were just sending a message to terrorists. You started, we replied. If you stop, we stop. And they stopped. There was an 88-hour war. We look back on that with a great deal of frustration because it needn’t have happened at all. Lives have been lost. But at the same time, we look back on this experience with a steely and renewed sense of determination.
“There is now got to be a new norm. No one sitting in Pakistan is going to be allowed to believe that they can just walk across the border and kill our citizens with impunity. There will be a price to pay and that price has been going up systematically,” Tharoor said.
The delegation led by Tharoor includes Sarfaraz Ahmad (JMM), Ganti Harish Madhur Balayogi (TDP), Shashank Mani Tripathi (BJP), Bhubaneswar Kalita (BJP), Milind Deora (Shiv Sena), Tejasvi Surya (BJP), and India’s former Ambassador to the US Taranjit Sandhu.
The delegation reached New York on Saturday and will travel to Guyana from here. It will return to the US on June 3.
Tharoor underscored that India is “not interested, and we still remain absolutely clear, we are not interested in warfare with Pakistan.
“We would much rather be left alone to grow our economy and put our people into the world” of the 21st century, he said.
“And if they can’t get it through conventional means, they’re willing to get it through terrorism. That is not acceptable to us, and that’s really the message that we are here to give all of you in this country and elsewhere,” he said.
