Hours after being named and shamed by External Affairs Minister Jaishankar as “as a promoter, justifier and spokesperson of a terrorism industry which is the mainstay of Pakistan”, Foreign Minister of Pakistan, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari termed his visit to India to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Foreign Ministers’ summit a “success.”
Addressing a press conference on Friday after the summit, Jaishankar hit out at Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s ‘weaponising terrorism” remarks at the SCO meeting and said that the victims of terrorism and perpetrators of terrorism cannot sit together to discuss terrorism.
“I want no citizen to be a victim of terrorism, we all have to fight terrorism as one, if we remain separate, we will continue to be victims of it,” Bilawal said in a video shared by the Secretariat of Pakistan Peoples Party Chairman on Twitter.
Soon after his return to Pakistan from India, where he spoke at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s (SCO) Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM), Bilawal Bhutto Zardari hailed his trip to India as a “success”, the Dawn reported.
He termed Jaishankar’s comments about him being a perpetrator of terrorism as a “joke”, the Dawn reported. “This country knows me, have I once even in my political history accidentally sat down with a terrorist?,” Dawn quoted Bilawal Bhutto Zardari as saying.
“They don’t see that even in our country we (PPP) perform a role in the first ranks against appeasing terrorists,” he added.
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said he did not want any Pakistani, Indian or citizen of any other country to fall victim to terrorism, adding that people would continue dying “until we keep politicising this issue and become part of the geopolitical game being played in the world and this region, ” the Dawn reported.
“A false narrative is being propagated by the Indian Foreign Minister.. and this narrative has been damaged by my visit to India, my speaking and my stand,” The Secretariat of Pakistan Peoples Party Chairman shared a video of Bilawal as saying.
He said that a “bipartisan approach across the geopolitical divide” was needed to address terrorism. He added, “We will have to combat it together as one and will keep being victims to it if we remain divided.”
Addressing a press conference after the SCO Foreign Ministers meeting held here on Friday, Jaishankar called out Bilawal Bhutto over Pakistan’s double standards on terrorism.
At the SCO Foreign Ministers meeting, Jaishankar said taking the eyes off terrorism would be detrimental to the security interests of the grouping. Jaishankar said on terrorism, Pakistan’s credibility is depleting faster than even its Forex reserves.”They are committing acts of terrorism. I don’t want to jump the gun on what happened today but we are all feeling equally outraged. On this matter, the terrorism matter, I would say that Pakistan’s credibility is depleting faster than even its Forex reserves,” he said.
Ruling out bilateral talks till Pakistan addresses India’s concerns on cross-border terrorism, Jaishankar said, “Victims of terrorism defend themselves, counter acts of terrorism, they call it out, they legitimise it and that is exactly what is happening. To come here and preach these hypocritical words as though we are on the same boat.”
“He came here as the Foreign Minister of an SCO Member State. That is part of multilateral diplomacy. Don’t see it as anything more than that. I think that nothing from what he said or what I heard he said deserves for this to be treated more than that,” Jaishankar said.