UNSC Member Panama’s Prez Expresses ‘Support for India’s Fight Against Terrorism’

PANAMA CITY:
Jose Raul Mulino Quintero, the President of Panama and a member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), has expressed “support for India’s fight against terrorism,” Congress MP Sashi Tharoor said after a delegation of members of Parliament met him.

At their “constructive and productive” meeting in the Presidential Palace, Mulino “expressed his understanding and support for India’s fight against terrorism,” Tharoor, who heads the delegation, said in a post on X on Wednesday (local time).

Panama’s Foreign Minister Javier Martinez-Acha Vasquez, who hosted a lunch for the delegation, was at the meeting with the President along with several senior officials.

Martinez-Acha “extended full support understanding of Panama on terrorism for India,” Taranjit Singh Sandhu, a former ambassador to the US who is accompanying the delegation, said in an X post.

They were joined by Vice-Minister Carlos Hoyos, as well as two members of Panama’s National Assembly, which was “a tribute to the regard in which India is held here,” Tharoor said.

During the meeting, Tharoor passed around pictures of Pakistani officials at the funeral of Hafiz Abdur Rauf, a senior leader of the Lashkar-e-Taiba and a designated a terrorist by the United Nations Sanctions Committee.

“There is no greater proof of official complicity” of Pakistan with terrorism, he told them.

Pakistan military’s top brass, including Lt Gen Fayyaz Hussain Shah and Maj Gen Rao Imran, and Punjab Police Inspector General Usman Anwar were among those who attended the funerals of Rauf and other terrorists killed in the Operation Sindoor hits on terrorism centres.

The parliamentary delegation was visiting this influential Central American country that is an elected member of the UN Security Council to make clear India’s policy of zero-tolerance for terrorism in the aftermath of the religiously motivated massacre of 26 people at Pahalgam by Pakistan-linked terrorists.

India launched Operation Sindoor to hit the infrastructure of terrorism in Pakistan and the areas of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

Islamabad launched attacks on targets in India, including temples, gurdwaras, and a convent, escalating the conflict.

Reflecting a broad national consensus on the issue, the delegation included parliamentarians from across party lines Shambhavi of the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas), Sarfaraz Ahmad of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, Milind Murli Deora of the Shiv Sena, and BJP leaders Shashank Mani Tripathi, Bhubaneswar Kalita, and Tejasvi Surya, along with GM Harish Balayogi of the Telugu Desam Party.

The delegation, which has visited New York and Guyana, is to visit Colombia and Brazil and head to Washington in the quest to rally support for India against terrorism.