Pakistan Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Friday reacted to the India-US joint statement wherein the two nations called on Islamabad to act against terrorists who target India from the neighboring country.
Speaking on the floor of Pakistan's National Assembly, he said that Islamabad shouldn't feel "insecure" about Delhi's growing relations with Washington.
"I don't believe there is any reason for Pakistan to be insecure about its relationship with the world or its bilateral partnership with America as a result of increasingly close cooperation between the US and India," the minister noted. "We believe that terrorism is such an issue that big powers should not make it controversial. They shouldn't make it a victim of geopolitics. If we have to face terrorism properly then we will do it ourselves in our country."
Bilawal's remarks came hours after Pakistan's arch-rival India and the United States issued a joint statement following the conclusion of talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and American President Joe Biden at the White House.
Modi was on a state visit to Washington on the invitation of Biden from June 21-23 where the two leaders held discussions on a range of issues including terrorism emanating from Pakistan.
"President Biden and Prime Minister Modi reiterated the call for concerted action against all UN-listed terrorist groups including Al-Qa'ida, ISIS/Daesh*, Lashkar e-Tayyiba (LeT)*, Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM)*, and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen*," the joint statement released by the White House read.
"They strongly condemned cross-border terrorism, the use of terrorist proxies and called on Pakistan to take immediate action to ensure that no territory under its control is used for launching terrorist attacks," it noted.
New Delhi has long blamed Islamabad for using militant groups based in Pakistan like Lashkar e-Tayyiba (LeT), and Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) to carry out attacks on Indian establishments.
According to Indian security agencies, LeT was behind the deadly 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people and injured over 300.
However, since PM Modi came to power in 2014, India has taken a tough stance on terrorism from Islamabad, with the Indian Army carrying out surgical strikes across the border in 2016.
Three years later, the Indian Air Force conducted airstrikes on a terror facility in Balakot in Pakistan following a suicide attack in Pulwama in Jammu and Kashmir that killed 40 paramilitary soldiers.
*terror organizations banned in Russia, India and other states