Era of uninterrupted Pakistan talks over: External Affairs Minister
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, August 30
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Friday said the era of having an “uninterrupted dialogue with Pakistan is over” even as he underscored the need to pursue the economic ties with Russia without intimidation.
Speaking at a book release event, Jaishankar termed the ties with the US “indispensable” and said India was looking at “mutuality of interests” with Bangladesh, which recently witnessed the ouster of PM Sheikh Hasina amid unrest.
Referring to Islamabad’s continued support to cross-border terrorism, the EAM said “actions have consequences”. “The issue remains as to what kind of relations we can contemplate with Pakistan… we are not passive. Whether events take a positive or negative direction, either way, we will react,” he said, while asserting Article 370 was “done” in Jammu and Kashmir.
Will look for mutual interests with B’desh
We have to recognise there are political changes, which can be disruptive. Clearly we have to look at mutuality of interests. S Jaishankar, External Affairs Minister
Pakistan had yesterday sent an invite to PM Narendra Modi for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s Council of Heads of Government meeting in Islamabad in October.
On ties with Russia, the EAM said there was an “economic complementarity” between the two sides and that “we should not be intimidated” in pursuing its advantages. This comes nearly a week after Ukraine questioned New Delhi’s economic ties with Moscow.
Jaishankar said their trade had gone up five-fold, but asserted it was not a simple crude oil relationship.
Moscow, he said, was following its own look-East policy. After the conflict with Ukraine began in 2022, there had been a profound shift in the way Russia looked at the world. “We need to take advantage of it rather than get clouded by a larger narrative, which is not our narrative,” the minister said. Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy had recently pointed to how India was supporting Russia’s “war economy”.
Commenting on ties with the US, Jaishankar said: “I don’t dispute history… we are talking about convergence. It’s not alliance, it’s about overlapping interests and to work together on issues which suit us.”
“Our understanding of the US has changed, so has its. There are some issues we agree on, others we don’t. The record of the past 20 years (of India-US relations) suggests the choices that we’ve made have been right ones,” he added. He said the projection of ties with China as a “strategic and cooperative partnership” in 2005 was an “astounding mistake”. The development of border infrastructure on the Indian side was key to maintaining peace and tranquillity along the Line of Actual Control, he said.
On Bangladesh, the minister said there would be a change of regime in democracies, but “we have to look for mutual interest”.
