Pakistan minister admits to shielding TRF, the outfit that owned Pahalgam terror attack, at UNSC

Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar has accepted that his country removed the terror group The Resistance Front’s (TRF) name from a UN Security Council Statement that condemned the Pahalgam attack.

Speaking in Pakistan’s National Assembly on Tuesday, Dar said, “We opposed the mention of TRF at the UNSC statement condemning the Pahalgam terror attack. I got calls from global capitals, but Pakistan will not accept. TRF was deleted, & Pakistan prevailed.”

On April 22, the day of the attack, TRF, an offshoot of Lashkar-e-Taiba, reportedly claimed responsibility for the terrorist attack that killed 26 people. Later that week, however, the group backtracked and denied involvement in the Pahalgam attack.

Dar added, “On behalf of Pakistan, I had two objections [to the statement]. First, only Pahalgam was mentioned and secondly, the blame was put on The Resistance Forum. I thought this was not acceptable. You have to write Jammu and Kashmir along with Pahalgam.” Throughout his statement at the Assembly, the foreign minister used an alternate name for TRF.

In its statement on the attack, the UNSC did not mention Pahalgam or name any terror outfit, as it “condemned the act in the strongest terms.”

The minister defended TRF, saying that it is just a “forum” founded by locals and rejected its classification as a terrorist group. TRF was the byproduct of the revocation of Article 370 in 2019.

Dar stated that if TRF were to be specifically mentioned in the press release, there should be supporting evidence. He also claimed that media reports suggesting TRF had taken responsibility for the brutal attack were false.

Dar said the statement took two and a half days to finalise because Pakistan rejected the original draft. "I received phone calls from big capitals to come to a consensus on the draft, but I told them nothing doing," he said.