Goa(India) : Pakistan Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari chose to personally participate in the SCO Foreign Ministers’ meeting at Goa for multiple reasons. Knowing that India would indirectly target Pakistan on the terrorism issue, he would have wanted to state his piece.
From Bhutto Zardari’s interviews with some Indian journalists it is very much loud and clear that Pakistan is digging a deeper hole for itself in its relations with India. His rhetoric and polemics show a continued regression in attitudes towards India rather than an effort to keep doors open.
On the side, India is also in no mood to spare him. On Friday, External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar called him (Bilawal Bhutto) a “promoter, justifier and spokesperson” of a terrorism industry. Jaishankar also called out Bilawal Bhutto over Pakistan’s double standards on terrorism, Jaishankar said the neighbouring country’s credibility is depleting faster than even its Forex reserves.
In an interview, Pakistan Foreign Minister Bilawal insisted that Pakistan will not have any dialogue with India unless India reverses its August 5, 2019 decision to amend Article 370, which he knows will not happen.
“Article 370 is history and we can’t sit quietly if there is cross border #Terrorism . We will expose and react”, EAM @DrSJaishankar said in presser today. #SCO #SCO2023 #Goa @MEAIndia @AfricaWnn #JK #India pic.twitter.com/bP9c3D6EEo
— Dr. Shahid Siddiqui (@shahidsiddiqui) May 5, 2023
Hitting back Pakistan Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto after commented on the abrogation of Article 370 from Jammu & Kashmir on the sidelines of the Shanghai Corporation Organization (SCO), External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar advised the former to “Wake up and smell the coffee, as Article 370 is history.”
“Victims of terrorism do not sit together with its perpetrators to discuss terrorism. Bhutto Zardari came as Foreign Minister of a SCO member state; that’s part of multilateral diplomacy and we don’t see anything more than that,” ,” EAM Jaishankar further said.
The two foreign ministers did not hold a bilateral at the SCO meeting.
Mr Jaishankar’s comments come on a day when five Indian Army soldiers were killed in action during an operation to find terrorists hiding in a forest near Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch. The terrorists, suspected to be Pakistanis, had ambushed an army truck last week, killing five other soldiers.
Mr Zardari, the son of assassinated Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, is the first Pakistani Foreign Minister to visit India in nearly 12 years. In 2011, then Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar had visited India. The last minister-level visit from Pakistan was in 2016 by Sartaj Aziz.
At the SCO meeting, Mr Jaishankar called for united efforts to fight terrorism. He said taking eyes off terrorism would be bad for the SCO.
“We must not allow anybody – individual or state – to hide behind non-state actors… While the world was engaged in facing Covid and its consequences, the menace of terrorism continued unabated. Taking our eyes of this menace would be detrimental to our security interests,” Mr Jaishankar said.
Speaking over a question on India-Pakistan ties and ruling out bilateral talks between the two countries, Jaishankar said, “Victims of terrorism do not sit together with perpetrators of terrorism to discuss terrorism. Victims of terrorism defend themselves, counter acts of terrorism, they call it out, they legitimise it and that is exactly what is happening.”
“As a foreign minister of an SCO member state, Mr Bhutto Zardari was treated accordingly. As a promoter, justifier and spokesperson of a terrorism industry which is the mainstay of Pakistan, his positions were called out and countered including at the SCO meeting itself,” EAM Jaishankar further added.
-Dr. M Shahid Siddiqui (PhD), Follow via Twitter @shahidsiddiqui
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