Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on Friday questioned the credibility of Islamabad's stance on terrorism, after hosting the first visit by a Pakistani foreign minister to the country in more than a decade.
Mr Jaishankar was speaking to the media after the conclusion of the foreign ministers' meeting of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation, an intergovernmental security and economic bloc.
The foreign ministers of China, Russia, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan attended the meeting in the coastal state of Goa and discussed multilateral co-operation among SCO members, regional and global issues, reform and modernisation of the organisation, and combating terrorism.
Mr Jaishankar’s stern comments came hours after five Indian soldiers were killed in a gunfight with suspected armed militants in the disputed Kashmir region, which both India and Pakistan claim in full but rule only parts.
India accuses Pakistan of aiding and sponsoring terrorism on its soil.
“They are committing acts of terrorism,” Mr Jaishankar said.
“I don't want to jump the gun on what happened today but we are all feeling equally outraged.”
He added in a jab at Pakistan's ongoing economic crisis: “On this matter, the terrorism matter, I would say that Pakistan's credibility is depleting faster than even its forex reserves.”
He accused his counterpart Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, the first Pakistani foreign minister to visit India since 2011, of promoting terrorism.
“He was treated according to the SCO member state, but as a promoter, justifier and spokesperson of a terrorism industry — the mainstay of Pakistan, his positions were called out,” Mr Jaishankar said.
Mr Bhutto-Zardari had earlier told local media that Pakistan was willing to resolve all its issues with India through dialogue but the issue of Kashmir made such discussions “difficult”.
The Muslim-majority Himalayan region has remained a flashpoint between the two countries since they gained independence from Britain in 1947. The nuclear-armed neighbours have fought three wars over the territory.
Their relations took a turn for the worse in 2019 after New Delhi changed the constitutional status of India-administered Kashmir.
Islamabad condemned the move as “unilateral and illegal” and downgraded its diplomatic ties with India. It also expelled the Indian envoy.
Although Mr Jaishankar held bilateral talks with his Chinese and Russian counterparts, the much-anticipated one-on-one conversation between him and Mr Bhutto-Zardari did not take place.
“Victims of terrorism don’t sit together with perpetrators to discuss terrorism,” Mr Jaishankar said
“He came here as a member of foreign minister and has an SCO membership that is part of multilateral diplomacy. It was not meant or treated as more than that.
“Whether peace is destiny or not, I do not know. Terrorism cannot be destiny. A country which does terrorism cannot talk about peace in the same breath.”
Mr Jaishankar reiterated that Kashmir “was, is and will be a part of India”.
The Indian Foreign Minister also said that he had told his Chinese counterpart Qin Gang of the need for disengagement on their disputed border to revive diplomatic ties that have remained frozen after hand-to-hand combat between troops in 2020 left 20 Indian soldiers dead.
“There is an abnormal position in the boundary areas and we had a very frank discussion about it,” Mr Jaishankar said.
“We have to take the disengagement process forward and I have made it very clear that India-China relations are not normal and cannot be normal if the peace and tranquillity in the border areas is disturbed.”
He also objected to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, saying that it violated the territorial integrity and sovereignty of states.
The $50 billion infrastructure project, which will connect Central Asia with the Indian Ocean through Pakistan’s Gwadar port, passes through Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
