In Parliament, Jaishankar Celebrated UNSC's Acceptance of TRF as a Terrorist Entity. But Did it?

The Wire

6 days ago

New Delhi: External affairs minister S. Jaishankar told the Rajya Sabha on July 30 that the United Nations had, for the first time, recognised The Resistance Front (TRF) as a proxy of the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT) in a recent report by the UN Security Council's monitoring team. However, a review of the report shows that it only cites the views of member states and does not offer any conclusion of its own.
Referring to the latest report of the UN Security Council 1267 sanctions committee's Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team, Jaishankar said during the debate on Operation Sindoor the document had named TRF and accepted its links to LeT.
'We were able to get into the UN a recognition that TRF today is a proxy for the LeT and is responsible for Pahalgam,' he said, referring to the April 22 terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir in which 26 civilians were killed. He described this as the 'first time' such a reference had appeared in a public UN document and said India had succeeded 'in getting the UN Security Council monitoring team to accept that TRF today is a terrorist entity.'
However, the report's language is measured, as it does not independently endorse any of positions, nor does it characterise TRF in its own words.
Paragraph 84, which covers developments in Central and South Asia, notes that the Pahalgam attack was initially claimed by The Resistance Front (TRF), which 'later retracted its claim.'
It then outlines differing assessments from UN member states. 'One Member State said the attack could not have happened without Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT) support, and that there was a relationship between LeT and TRF,' the report states. Another country is quoted as saying 'the attack was carried out by TRF, which is synonymous with LeT.' A third member state, however, 'rejected both views and said LeT was defunct.'
The report does not independently endorse any of these positions, nor does it characterise TRF in its own words.
Jaishankar expressed satisfaction that India, despite not being a member of the UN Security Council, had obtained a press statement condemning the Pahalgam terror attack.
'In terms of the global response, I think most noteworthy was the UN Security Council statement was very noteworthy because Pakistan is a member'.
He claimed that 'our diplomacy was able to get the UN Security Council to issue a statement underlying the need to hold the perpetrators, organisers, financiers and sponsors of the Pahalgam Act of Terrorism accountable and bring them to justice'.
No reference to the Indian government
In a key departure from its 2019 statement after the Pulwama terror attack, the UN Security Council's press statement on the Jammu and Kashmir attack drops a direct reference to the government of India.
While the 2019 statement had urged all states to 'cooperate actively with the Government of India and all other relevant authorities' to bring the perpetrators to justice, the April 2025 statement does not call for cooperation with the Indian government. Instead, it refers more broadly to 'all relevant authorities.' By contrast, the Council's March 2025 statement on the attack of Pakistan's Jafar Express had explicitly called for member states to cooperate with the government of Pakistan.
UNSC press statements are only issued with the consensus of all 15 Council members, including the US, Russia, France and the UK, indicating no objections were raised to the final language.
In other part of the speech, he also claimed that India had inserted paragraphs on combating terrorism in all statement in multilateral forums. 'Today, if terrorism is on the global agenda, it is due to the efforts of the Modi government.'
Elsewhere in his remarks, Jaishankar claimed that India had ensured that counter-terrorism references were included in the statements of all multilateral forums. 'Today, if terrorism is on the global agenda, it is due to the efforts of the Modi government,' he said.
The foreign minister said that he is often asked whether such declarations matter. 'They matter, sir, because they shape global opinion.'
Despite Jaishankar's assertion that India had shaped the global narrative on terrorism, Pakistan, whom India has often described as epicentre of global terrorism, is currently serving as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council. As Council member Pakistan now chairs the Council's 1988 Sanctions Committee, which monitors measures against the Taliban, and has also been appointed vice-chair of the 1373 Counter-Terrorism Committee.
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