Sending a clear message to the new government in Pakistan, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has said that the mood in India now is not to overlook terrorism emanating from the neighbouring country which uses it as an “instrument of statecraft”.
Jaishankar made these remarks during an event at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS) of the National University of Singapore (NUS). Jaishankar, who is on a three-day visit to Singapore, said, “Every country wants a stable neighbourhood…if nothing else, you want at least a quiet neighbourhood.” He was responding to a question on India’s ties with Pakistan.
‘Terrorism as statecraft’
Underlining that Pakistan has been sponsoring terrorism against India, Jaishankar asked, “How do you deal with a neighbour who does not hide the fact that they use terrorism as an instrument of statecraft?” “It’s not a one-off happening…but very sustained, almost at an industry level…So what we have come to conclude is that we have to find a way of addressing (the menace), that dodging the problem gets us nowhere, it only invites more trouble,” he said.
In India now, “the mood is not to overlook terrorists”, Jaishankar said. “I don’t have a quick instantaneous fix (to this issue). But what I can tell you is that India will not skirt this problem anymore. We are not going to say, ‘well, that happened and let’s continue our dialogue’…we have a problem and we must be honest enough to face up to that problem, however difficult it is…we should not give the other country a free pass, saying there’s nothing they can do about it or it’s a very hard problem, or there’s so much else at stake that let us overlook,” he asserted.
Ties between India and Pakistan strained after a terror attack on the Pathankot Air Force base in 2016 by terror groups based in the neighbouring country. The relationship nosedived after India’s warplanes pounded a Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorist training camp deep inside Pakistan on February 26, 2019, in response to the Pulwama terror attack in which 40 CRPF jawans were killed.
The relations deteriorated further after India announced the withdrawal of the special powers of Jammu and Kashmir and the bifurcation of the state into two union territories in August 2019. India has repeatedly told Pakistan that it desires normal neighbourly relations with it in an environment free of terror, hostility and violence.
(With agency inputs)
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