India has warned Pakistan that attempts to use the threat of nuclear weapons to avoid consequences for terrorism will not deter New Delhi from responding to attacks. India has also reiterated that any terrorist attack against the country will invite a fitting response.
Referring to Operation Sindoor, India’s military action against terrorist bases in Pakistan last year, Bedi said it followed the Pahalgam terror attack, in which Pakistan-based terrorists killed 26 civilians.
“India will not bow to nuclear blackmail,” Anmol Sher Bedi, senior adviser at India’s Permanent Mission to the UN Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, said on Friday. “India acted in self-defence,” he said, describing the operation as “measured, targeted, and designed to be non-escalatory”. “Nuclear weapons must not be treated as routine instruments of statecraft,” he said, warning that relying on the threat of nuclear weapons to limit the consequences of lower-intensity hostile activities could increase the risk of escalation rather than encourage restraint. Reassuring the committee about India’s nuclear policy, Bedi said the country’s nuclear capabilities were not directed against any particular nation and “are defensive in nature”. “They are shaped by our own security environment,” he said. “On proliferation, India refers to the history of the AQ Khan network, which contributed to the Security Council Resolution 1540 almost two decades back,” Bedi said. “We urge all states and all responsible suppliers to exercise the highest degree of vigilance, not because of India, but for their own security,” he said. “In India’s experience, crises in the region have tended to follow a recurring pattern: first, provocation; second, denial of responsibility; and third, appeals for restraint once a response has been made,” he said.
