The foreign ministers of India and Pakistan sparred over Kashmir and terrorism at the India-initiated discussion on reformed multilateralism in the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday even as Islamabad has renewed its effort to accuse India of indulging in terrorist activities on Pakistani soil.

In his long statement on multilateralism, Pakistan’s foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari raked up Kashmir and said it was a multilateral agenda that had been left unaddressed, drawing a sharp response from Indian external affairs minister S. Jaishankar.

“The credibility of the UN depends on its effective response on the key challenges of our times — be it pandemics, climate change, conflicts or terrorism. While we search for the best solutions, what our discourse must never accept is the normalisation of such threats. The question of justifying what the world regards as unacceptable should not even arise. That certainly applies to state sponsorship of cross-border terrorism. Nor can hosting Osama bin Laden and attacking a neighbouring Parliament serve as credentials to sermonise before this Council,” Jaishankar said.

Directly addressing India — which currently holds the rotating presidency of the UNSC — Bhutto-Zardari had said: “There is an agenda item left unaddressed that we believe is a multilateral agenda. It is an agenda of this UN Security Council. If you want to see the success of multilateral institutions, the success of multilateralism, the success of this very Council, then surely you can aid in this process and allow for the implementation of UN Security Council resolutions when it comes to the question of Kashmir, prove that multilateralism can succeed, prove that the United Nations Security Council under your worthy presidency can succeed and deliver peace in our region.”

Wednesday’s meeting was called by India essentially to once again push for long-pending reforms in the United Nations as part of New Delhi’s bid to get a permanent seat at the global high table — the UNSC.

Pakistan this week launched a diplomatic offensive to draw attention to what it claims is India’s alleged involvement in terrorism and sabotage on Pakistani soil. According to a PTI report from Islamabad, Pakistani foreign secretary Asad Majeed briefed Islamabad-based foreign diplomats while minister of state for foreign affairs Hina Rabbani Khar addressed a news conference on the issue, a day after interior minister Rana Sanaullah alleged that India was involved in a blast outside Mumbai terror attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed’s residence in Lahore last year.

Later in the day at the UN, while responding to questions about Pakistan’s allegations, Jaishankar quoted what former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton had told Khar in 2011 — “you can’t keep snakes in your backyard and expect them only to bite your neighbours”. Further, he said Pakistan was not fooling anyone by taking the discussion on terrorism elsewhere. “Lot of us have brain fog due to Covid but the world has not forgotten whose fingerprints are on terror attacks.”