UN General Assembly
2018

want to check terrorists and their protectors. We need to bring them to accountability through international law. In 1996, India submitted a document with a draft comprehensive convention on international terrorism at the United Nations. That draft remains a draft today only because we cannot agree on a common language. On the one hand, we want to fight terrorism; on the other, we cannot define it. That has allowed terrorists with a price on their head to be celebrated in Pakistan as “freedom fighters”. Their cruelty and barbarism are being advertised as heroism. The country of Pakistan prints postage stamps glorifying such terrorists. How long can we sit quietly and listen to such claims? If we do not act now, we will have to deal with that demon later on, when it sets fire to the entire world. Once again, I appeal to this body to come to an agreement on the draft comprehensive convention on international terrorism and to adopt it as one of the necessary measures in a long-running war.