At OIC, Sushma exposes Pak terror funding links | Top Highlights

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Friday exposed Pakistan's terror funding at the foreign ministers' meet of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Abu Dhabi, where she was invited as the guest of honour. Swaraj attended the the inaugural plenary of the two-day meeting on Friday. It is for the first time that India has been invited to a meeting of the OIC, an influential grouping of 57 Islamic countries, as the guest of honour. India's engagement with the OIC comes in the midst of escalating tension between India and Pakistan. The ties strained further after Indian fighter jets bombed terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed's biggest training camp near Balakot deep inside Pakistan early Tuesday. Pakistan carried out a retaliatory aerial raid on Wednesday.

TOP HIGHLIGHTS:

•  If we want to save humanity,we must tell the states who provide shelter and funding to terrorists, to dismantle the infrastructure of the terrorist camps and stop providing shelter & funding to the terror organisations based in that country.
• I come from land of Mahatma Gandhi where every prayer ends with call for 'shanti' that is peace for all. I convey our best wishes, support and solidarity in your quest for stability, peace, harmony, economic growth&prosperity for your people and world.
• This is not a clash of civilisations or cultures, but a contest of ideas and ideals. As PM Modi has often said, it is a struggle between the values of humanism and the forces of inhumanity.
• India has always embraced and found it easy to embrace pluralism since it is embedded in the oldest Sanskrit religious text “The Rig Veda” and I quote "एकं सद्विप्रा बहुधा वदन्ति", which means “God is One but learned men describe Him in many ways".
• The fight against terrorism is not a confrontation against any religion. It cannot be. Just as Islam literally means peace,none of the 99 names of Allah mean violence. Similarly, every religion in the world stands for peace, compassion & brotherhood.
• Terrorism and extremism bear different names and labels. It uses diverse causes. But in each case, it is driven by distortion of religion, and a misguided belief in its power to succeed.
• India shares much with you. Many of us have experienced the dark days of colonialism. Many of us saw, the light of freedom and the bright ray of hope at the same time. We have stood together in solidarity, in our quest for justice and dignity.
• In the past four years, few relationships have seen as much engagement, or has been so transformed, as India’s relationship with #UAE and, indeed, with the entire Gulf and West Asia Region. In a sense, it is a return of history.
• I carry the greetings of 1.3 billion Indians, including more than 185 million Muslim brothers and sisters. Our Muslims brothers and sisters are a microcosm of the diversity of India itself.
• I stand here as a representative of a land, that has been for ages a fountain of knowledge, a beacon of peace, a source of faiths and traditions, and home to religions from the world & now, one of the major economies of the world

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