Disheartened: Shashi Tharoor reacts to Colombia denouncing Pakistani fatalities following Op Sindoor.

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, heading a multi-party delegation to five nations, on Friday voiced his dissatisfaction with the Colombian government’s condolence message for Pakistani casualties following India’s Operation Sindoor, asserting that there is no moral equivalence between terrorists and those protecting their country.

“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. We will say ” Thaoor said while addressing the media in Colombia.

“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’re very happy to talk to Colombia in some detail about the circumstances,” he added.

Tharoor emphasized that India’s response was a justified self-defense action after a violent terror assault on civilians in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir, attributed to The Resistance Front, a faction of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operating from Pakistan.

Tharoor said, “We are here looking for understanding… We have the impression that perhaps the situation was not fully understood when that one statement (Colombia extending condolences for deaths in Pakistan after Indian strikes on terror hotbeds) was made. Understanding is extremely important for us. We are a country which has really been a force for constructive progress in the world”.

“We certainly hope that other governments will tell those who give safe haven and protection to terrorists to stop doing so. That would be very helpful indeed, as well in the Security Council or outside it,” the Congress leader added.

Shashi Tharoor rejected the idea of third-party mediation in the recent border tensions between India and Pakistan, claiming there had been no official discussions involving India.

“We received a number of phone calls from senior United States officials and also from senior officials of other countries (France, UAE, Saudi Arabia). And the message we gave to all these countries was exactly the same. We are not interested in war. We were just doing retribution for a terrorist attack. If they stop, we stop,” he said.

“Certainly there was no sort of active process of mediation that we are aware of. Certainly nothing involving us, because we never intended to begin with from the very first day when the anti-terror strikes took place on the night of May 7. We are not the belligerent power in this particular equation,” he added.