India signs Quad statement that condemns Pahalgam terror attack but refrains from blaming Pakistan

The Quad statement even refrained from identifying the scene of the attack as within the territory of India.

New Delhi: India has signed a Quad joint statement that condemned the April 22 terrorist attack in Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir but refrained from criticising Pakistan.

A meeting of the foreign ministers of the Quad ended with a joint statement condemning the carnage “in the strongest terms” but kept mum on the links of the terrorists with Pakistan and even refrained from identifying the scene of the attack as within the territory of India.

The Quad is a four-nation coalition forged by India, Australia, Japan, and the United States to counter China’s expansionist and hegemonic aspirations in the Indo-Pacific region. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar joined US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Australian and Japanese foreign ministers, Penny Wong and Takeshi Iwaya, at the meeting of the Quad foreign ministers in Washington, DC, on Tuesday.

India recently declined to sign a joint communiqué that was proposed to be issued at the end of a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in Qingdao in China. The draft joint statement had taken note of the SCO’s concerns over the situation in Baluchistan in Pakistan, but had been silent on the terrorist attack in J&K of India. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, who had attended the meeting, had refused to sign the document, and, as a result, it had not been issued by the SCO, which comprised India, Pakistan, China, Russia, Iran, Tajikistan, Kyrgyz Republic, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.

The Quad, unlike the SCO, however, did not completely omit any reference to the terrorist attack in J&K. The four-nation coalition unequivocally condemned all acts of terrorism and violent extremism in all its forms and manifestations, including cross-border terrorism, and renewed it commitment to counterterrorism cooperation. “We condemn in the strongest terms the terrorist attack in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir on April 22, 2025, which claimed the lives of 25 Indian nationals and one Nepali citizen, while injuring several others. We express our deepest condolences to the families of the victims and extend our heartfelt wishes for a swift and full recovery to all those injured,” the four-nation coalition stated. “We call for the perpetrators, organisers, and financiers of this reprehensible act to be brought to justice without any delay and urge all UN Member States, in accordance with their obligations under international law and relevant UN Security Council resolution, to cooperate actively with all relevant authorities in this regard,” stated the foreign ministers of the Quad.

After the April 22 carnage, The Resistance Force (TRF) – a proxy of Lashkar-e-Tayyiba – claimed responsibility for the attack.

The LeT has its headquarters in Pakistan and has been carrying out attacks in India.

Though many nations condemned the latest carnage in J&K, most of them refrained from calling out Pakistan for persistently sponsoring terrorism against India. During the May 7-10 cross-border military offensive and counter-offensive between India and Pakistan, several nations urged New Delhi to exercise restraint or work with Islamabad to diffuse tensions.

President Donald Trump of the US and his administration re-hyphenated India and Pakistan and, despite New Delhi’s rebuttals, claimed credit for brokering a ceasefire between the two South Asian neighbours. Trump said after the terrorist attack in J&K that he was close to both India and Pakistan, and the two nations had been fighting over Kashmir for 1000 years.

A senior US Army commander showered praises on the Pakistan Army for hunting down the ISIS-K terrorists and called it a “phenomenal partner” in counterterrorism. Though New Delhi accused Pakistan Army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, of provoking the April 22 attacks with his communal rhetoric against India, Trump hosted him at the White House on June 18. He even put Munir and Prime Minister Narendra Modi within the same bracket and said that “two smart people” had decided to halt the military flare-up that had put the two South Asian neighbours on the brink of war.