New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Croatia, Norway and the Netherlands has been postponed amid surging tensions between India and Pakistan following New Delhi’s Operation Sindoor, ThePrint has learnt.
The tri-nation visit was originally scheduled from 13 to 17 May.
Modi was set to land in Croatia for a bilateral visit, while he was due to attend the third India-Nordic Summit in Oslo along with leaders from Norway, Iceland, Denmark, Finland and Sweden, and then visit the Netherlands.
The trip has been rescheduled for a later date after India hit nine sites linked to terrorists in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir between 1 am and 1.30 am Wednesday. The strikes were in response to last month’s terrorist attack in Jammu & Kashmir’s Pahalgam, which left 26 tourists dead, including 25 Indians and one foreign national.
Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri at a special briefing Wednesday announced that terrorists trained by Lashkar-e-Taiba, a United Nations-proscribed organisation, were behind the attack through a smaller group, The Resistance Front (TRF).
“This group is a front for the UN-proscribed Pakistani terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba. It is notable that India had given inputs about the TRF in the half-yearly report to the monitoring team of the UN’s 1267 Sanctions Committee in May and November 2024, bringing out its role as a cover for Pakistan-based terrorist groups,” said Misri.
“Pakistan’s pressure to remove references to TRF in the April 25 UN Security Council press statement is notable in this regard.”
Misri added that further attacks against India were “impending”, which led to Operation Sindoor to “deter” and “pre-empt” future attacks.
Islamabad has claimed that Operation Sindoor constitutes an act of war.
India’s first punitive measures against Pakistan were diplomatic, such as holding the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance, reducing the strength of Islamabad’s mission in New Delhi from 55 to 30, and expelling three defence advisers stationed in Delhi and annulling the posts.
Pakistan has announced its own measures, including that it “shall exercise” its right to hold all bilateral agreements, including the Simla Agreement, in abeyance.
Pakistan’s foreign ministry summoned India’s Charge D’Affaires in Islamabad to protest Operation Sindoor.
India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval briefed his American counterpart Marco Rubio on the strikes, while senior Indian officials briefed their counterparts in the UK, UAE, Russia and Saudi Arabia about the same.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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