‘Victims of terror don’t sit with perpetrators of terror’; Jaishankar draws barbed line with Pakistan
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By Manish Anand
New Delhi Delhi, May 5: Pouring bucket of ice over armchair loud thinking of a breakthrough in relations with the visit of Biawal Bhutto Zardari, a first Pakistani visit in several years, India made it clear that terrorism stays the denominator in ties and there can’t be shaking of hands until the terror factory is shut down by Islamabad.
On the conclusion of the meeting of the foreign ministers of the member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Goa, Union Minister for External Affairs S Jaishankar blanked any scope of speculation by saying that “victims of terrorism don’t sit together with perpetrators of terrorism. Pakistan’s credibility on terrorism is fast depleting as is the case of its forex reserves”.
Jaishankar also asserted that the only issue between India and Pakistan is that of Islamabad vacating the Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. “G20 meetings are being held all across the country, and it will be held in Jammu and Kashmir also,” said the minister, who also snubbed a reporter on Article 370, saying that the special Constitutional arrangement was now history.
Making it clear that there was no audience for Pakistan’s advocacy of peace and destiny in India, Jaishankar was more blunt than his earlier articulation, saying that “he (Zardari) came here as a member of SCO and he was treated as a spokesperson of terrorism while his position on terror was called out and countered”.
India rebutted claims of Pakistan at the FMs’ deliberations in the SCO meeting in which Zardari sought to portray Islamabad as a victim of terrorism as he called for sitting together with New Delhi to jointly counter terror. Zardari has also claimed that he was sensing rise of Afghanistan-based terror groups. Incidentally, a section of the Afghanistan terror groups have turned up against Pakistan which led to violent attacks in the border districts.
Zardari’s peace overture was, however, timed badly as the SCO meeting took place in the backdrop of another terror attack in the Rajouri district in Jammu and Kashmir. Jaishankar stressed that Zardari came to India to attend a multilateral SCO meeting in Goa and there was no bilateral dimension to the visit.
“He came here as a SCO member as part of multilateral diplomacy. Please don’t see anything more than that,” Jaishanker told Pakistani journalists at the press briefing in Goa.
Jaishanker also was scathing in his attack on Pakistan, as he rejected the connectivity claims of Zardari in pushing the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. “We made it very clear, twice in fact in the SCO meeting, that that connectivity is good for progress but cannot violate territorial sovereignty,” added Jaishankar.
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