Colombia has officially withdrawn its earlier statement expressing condolences on the loss of lives in Pakistan in India’s Operation Sindoor strikes on terrorist outfits after an all-party delegation by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor raised concerns and expressed disappointment in the Colombian government’s reaction.
After meeting the Tharoor-led all-party delegation, Colombia’s Vice Foreign Minister, Ms Rosa Yolanda Villavicencio said: “We are very confident that with the explanation that we received today and the detailed information that we now have regarding the real situation, the conflict, and what happened in Kashmir, we can also continue the dialogue.”
The development comes after Shashi Tharoor, leading the all-party delegation in Colombia, said that India was disappointed with the Colombian government’s statement expressing condolences over the loss of lives in Pakistan due to Indian strikes.
“We were a little disappointed in the reaction of the Colombian government, which apparently expressed heartfelt condolences on the loss of lives in Pakistan after the Indian strikes, rather than sympathising with the victims of terrorism,” he said on Thursday.
Tharoor stated that India exercised its right to self-defence after the barbaric Pahalgam terror attack in which 26 people, mostly innocent tourists, were killed by Islamabad-backed terrorists.
“We will say to our friends in Colombia, there can be no equivalence between those who dispatch terrorists and those who resist them. There can be no equivalence between those who attack and those who defend. We are only exercising our right of self-defence, and if there is any misunderstanding here, on this core, we are here to dispel any such misunderstanding.
“We are very happy to talk to Colombia about the circumstances in detail. We have, as I said, very concrete proof. In fact, when this terrorist attack occurred, it was immediately claimed by an organisation called The Resistance Front, which is a unit of the Lashkar-e-Taiba base in Muridke, Pakistan,” Tharoor added.
India launched Operation Sindoor on the intervening night of May 6-7 and struck nine terror sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) in response to the Pahalgam attack. The precision strikes destroyed several bases Pakistan had been using to train the terrorists.
India dispatched seven all-party delegations to over 30 partner countries to counter Pakistan’s misinformation campaign about India’s Operation Sindoor and state India’s position on the war against terrorism.