Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan slammed country’s foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari for taking the “diplomatically risky journey” to India to attend the meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). He also criticised India over remarks by External Affairs Minister Jaishankar terming his Pakistani counterpart as “promoter, justifier and spokesperson of terrorism industry.”
“Have Indians forgotten all diplomatic mannerisms and etiquettes?” said the Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf chief during a rally in Lahore, quoted by Dawn.
“You either do not invite people or you do not misbehave with them.”
Lashing out Bilawal, Khan said the former should have calculated the risk before embarking on the journey.
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Though the Indian attitude leaves much to be desired, Pakistan’s foreign minister should have calculated the cost-benefit ratio before embarking on this diplomatically risky journey,” Khan added.
On the sidelines of SCO meeting in Goa on Friday, Jaishankar slammed Bilawal’s remarks on abrogation of Article 370 and said it is “history” even as he called him a “promoter, justifier and spokesperson of a terrorism industry”.
This came after Pakistan Foreign Minister Bilawal called India’s move to scrap Article 370 and 35 A that took away the special status of Jammu and Kashmir “unilateral and illegal” even as he told New Delhi to go back to the pre-August 2019 position.
Addressing the SCO, Bilawal had said countries “should not get caught up in weaponising terrorism for diplomatic point scoring.” He had also said that countries need to find “practical and pragmatic” solutions to eliminate terrorism.
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Reacting to that too, Jaishankar said, “It unconsciously reveals the mindset… What does weaponizing mean? It means that the activity is legitimate and somebody is weaponizing it. This means they think terrorism is legitimate…Do they mean we will put up with terrorism? That sentence spoke so much about the mindset of that country.”
Jaishankar said that Bilawal came to India as a member of the SCO and refuted claims that his Pakistani counterpart did that to achieve some kind of a “breakthrough” between India and Pakistan.