Pakistan and India barred each other’s comments at a meeting of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Foreign Ministers here. Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi declared that he would not attend the speech by External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar first, proclaiming at the last minute that he would not tend the SAARC Minister’s lunch while Mr. Jaishankar was chatting.
Mr. Jaishankar then delivered his comment and left the meeting, moments before the Pakistani Foreign Minister’s entry, assuring that the two Ministers were not present in the room mutually at any period.
Mr. Jaishankar did not reflect on the tensed circumstances at the SAARC meet. Later, tweeting about his talk, he penned, “Ours is not just a story of missed possibilities but also of intentional barriers… Removal of terrorism is a precondition not only for productive cooperation but also for the very endurance of the region itself.”
As he proceeded into the meeting, Mr. Qureshi stated he could not “sit and talk” with “killers of Kashmiris.” Mr. Qureshi’s resolution was put out in a tweet 20 minutes after the conference was due to begin at a downtown hotel near the United Nations. The tweet put out by Pakistan’s governing party the PTI, said Pakistan would not fight with India unless it “lifted the offense and put an end to crimes there.”
The lunch later remained as programmed with comments from committees and Ministers from other SAARC nations including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Sri Lanka and the current SAARC chair Nepal, who sat throughout both declarations.
Pakistan was represented by Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mohammad Faisal through the External Affairs Minister’s talk, who intimated to Mr. Jaishankar that he would govern in place of Mr. Qureshi. Ironically, Mr. Faisal had informed The Hindu just a few moments before the lunch that the SAARC law did not allow for “respective issues to take center-stage.”
Pakistan has been complaining India’s declaration to avoid the SAARC summit due to be handled in Islamabad since 2016, until cross-border terrorism concludes, which has indicated that the SAARC summit, which expects all leaders to accompany, cannot be held. India has joined all other SAARC members at various fora, including BIMTEC, BBIN and also bilaterally, emphasizing that these are more prolific parkways at present.
After the conference, Mr. Qureshi claimed that Pakistan had achieved the consent of the association to build the SAARC summit in Islamabad next year. “If India believes it is still a part of SAARC, it is most pleasing to attend,” Mr. Qureshi said, continuing that “no country” had opposed to Pakistan’s program for the summit.
