External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Tuesday hit out at the United Nations for turning the ”invasion” of Kashmir into a dispute and bringing the attacker and victim at par and called for having a “strong and fair” world body.

In remarks at the Session on ‘Thrones and Thorns: Defending the Integrity of Nations’ at the Raisina Dialogue, he described the occupation of parts of Kashmir by Pakistan as “the longest standing illegal occupation” of territory by another country after the Second World War.

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“If you don’t have an order, then you are looking at a very anarchic world. I think we do need an international order just like we need a domestic order. Just like you need a society in a country, you need an international version of that and its not just big countries who will benefit if there is no order. I would argue that any country that would take risks, which would have extreme positions, which would test the system will actually use the disorder to its advantage.

“I mean we have seen it in our own neighbourhood. You don’t have to a big country to be a risky country. I have smaller neighbours who have done a pretty good job. So, first of all, we should all understand the importance of an order,” the minister said.

He said, “Now, the old order, it was an order, it was a product of its times. But, why I felt its virtuals were exaggerated was I think the rule maker and rule-taker had somewhat different perspective because I also said in the same interview that if you are at the receiving end of those rules or the application of those rules, we had issues and let me give you two or three practical examples.

“You know, if you capriciously, you know, if it suits your interests, somebody is good, not good, well, I’ll make up my mind how they’re going to do and you apply that order to the same country on the same issues differently.”

Mr Jaishankar noted that the Taliban was welcomed in the Doha process and Oslo. ”When it suits to deal with the Taliban, it is okay and when it is not, it is called extremist,” he added.

The foreign minister termed sovereignty and territorial integrity the “bedrock of global rules.” He also spoke on political interference, where he mentioned that when the West goes into other nations, it is “apparently in the perseverance of democratic freedoms.” However, he noted that when other nations come into the West, it appears to have a “very malign intention.”

Calling for a strong and fair UN, he said, “So I think we need to have an order, there must be fairness. agree with you, Dominique, we need a strong UN, but a strong UN requires a fair UN. A strong global order must have some basic consistency of standards. We have military crews to our east in Myanmar. They are a no-no. We have them even more regularly to the West. You know where? They seem to be okay.

“I think it’s important to audit the workings of the world for the last eight decades and be honest about it and to understand today that the balances, the shareholdings in the world have changed. We need a different conversation. We need frankly in that sense a different order.”

He also stated that India has navigated and adapted to a world that has “not always been kind” and “not always been accommodating,” but the country has drawn on its traditions to develop certain tactical skills.