{"id":6386,"date":"2023-05-09T12:27:56","date_gmt":"2023-05-09T12:27:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/?p=6386"},"modified":"2023-05-09T12:34:59","modified_gmt":"2023-05-09T12:34:59","slug":"at-sco-summit-india-pakistan-squabble-over-kashmir-terrorism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/at-sco-summit-india-pakistan-squabble-over-kashmir-terrorism\/","title":{"rendered":"At SCO summit, India, Pakistan squabble over Kashmir, \u2018terrorism\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u00a0Hafsa Adil<\/a><\/strong><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the fallout from a recent heated exchange between the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan<\/a> continues to play out in the public sphere, analysts say both officials put up a \u201cperformance\u201d for their respective domestic audiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During his\u00a0visit to India<\/a>\u00a0for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, Pakistan Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari\u00a0urged\u00a0<\/a>member nations to avoid using \u201cterrorism\u201d as a diplomatic instrument.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTerrorism continues to threaten global security,\u201d the foreign minister said during his address at the SCO. \u201cLet\u2019s not get caught up in weaponising terrorism for diplomatic point scoring.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also criticised India\u2019s decision to scrap the special status<\/a> of the disputed region of Kashmir, saying New Delhi\u2019s unilateral move in 2019 had undermined the environment for holding talks between the neighbours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe onus is on India to create a conducive environment for talks,\u201d Bhutto Zardari said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

India\u2019s Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar took strong exception to Bhutto Zardari\u2019s statement, calling him the \u201cspokesperson of a terrorism industry\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cVictims of terrorism do not sit together with its perpetrators to discuss terrorism,\u201d said Jaishankar at the SCO summit held in the Indian city of Goa, referring to deadly attacks on Indian soldiers in Indian-administered Kashmir. New Delhi has accused Pakistan of backing Kashmir rebels \u2013 a charge Islamabad has denied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Indian foreign minister also said that Kashmir\u2019s special status was \u201chistory\u201d, rejecting Pakistan\u2019s demands to reverse the scrapping of the region\u2019s special status.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In comments made during an interview with India Today news channel, Bhutto Zardari later said Islamabad was willing to engage and address any concerns India might have, but added New Delhi will also have to address Islamabad\u2019s concerns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the multilateral nature of the summit, the broadside between Bhutto Zardari and his Indian counterpart Jaishankar shifted the focus from matters of regional security towards the standoff between the two South Asian neighbours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two countries did not hold any bilateral talks during the summit, which was also attended by China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Russia and Uzbekistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two days after the summit\u2019s conclusion and Bhutto Zardari\u2019s return to Pakistan, the Indian foreign minister continued to engage in indirect criticism by saying \u201che [Bhutto Zardari] spoke about everything, including India\u2019s role in Kashmir, the G20, India\u2019s foreign policies except the finer details of the meeting he was invited for.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Playing to the crowd<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As the host nation for the summit, India\u2019s Hindu nationalist government reluctantly invited Bhutto Zardari, who became the first Pakistan foreign minister to visit India in 12 years amid heightened tensions between the neighbours, who have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Analysts say the indirect public exchange between the two officials has been \u201centirely on expected lines\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBoth foreign ministers were more worried about the internal politics in their own countries than making any progress on issues concerning their foreign policies,\u201d Sushant Singh, a senior fellow at India\u2019s Centre for Policy Research, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prior to setting off for India<\/a>, Bhutto Zardari said his country was committed to establishing peace in the region and urged the attendees to isolate terrorism from \u201cgeopolitical partisanship\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Singh, Jaishankar\u2019s comments are reflective of Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s endeavour to demonstrate that Pakistan doesn\u2019t matter to India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cModi\u2019s dominant narrative has been to portray India as an emerging great global power, and to portray Pakistan as being insignificant to India,\u201d Singh said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"India's
India\u2019s Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and his Pakistani counterpart Bilawal Bhutto Zardari pose for a photograph during the SCO Council of Foreign Ministers meeting in Goa, India on May 5, 2023 [India\u2019s Ministry of External Affairs\/Handout via Reuters]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u2018India\u2019s petty behaviour will limit its potential\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Bhutto Zardari\u2019s statement that Islamophobic wolf whistling won\u2019t be an effective \u201cterrorism\u201d strategy has been welcomed by Pakistan\u2019s media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is important for Pakistani leaders to continue to highlight and underscore the wild levels of hatred that can form mainstream Indian public discourse and public policy,\u201d Mosharraf Zaidi, of Pakistan-based public policy think-tank Tabadlab, told Al Jazeera from Islamabad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zaidi said India\u2019s \u201cpetty behaviour\u201d will limit its potential as a major world power, but that should not deter Pakistan from \u201cresisting India\u2019s hegemony\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The brief meeting between the two ministers, as Bhutto Zardari walked up to Jaishankar and was greeted by his Indian counterpart with a Hindu greeting of \u201cnamaste\u201d with clasped hands, has been subject to analysis on social media in both countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Zaidi said that while much attention should not be given to the nature of the physical engagement, as the greeting was \u201crespectful\u201d, the way in which Jaishankar talked about Pakistan should be scrutinised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIndia can afford to misbehave as it did at the conference because its powers and stakes far exceed the cost of this kind of behaviour,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

India\u2019s \u2018two-fold\u2019 problem<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Singh, the Indian expert, noted that Jaishankar and India may have chosen to keep away from bilateral talks with Pakistan as they do not wish to \u201cup the ante\u201d with India\u2019s western neighbour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIndia is under pressure due to its border crisis with China, and it would be very difficult for it to manage a two-front challenge by engaging with Pakistan,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A clash in the Ladakh border region between Indian and Chinese soldiers left 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese dead three years ago. It turned into a long-running standoff in the rugged mountainous area, where each side has stationed tens of thousands of military personnel backed by artillery, tanks and fighter jets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last month, India\u2019s defence minister accused China of eroding the \u201centire basis\u201d<\/a> of ties between the two countries by violating a bilateral agreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Zaidi, India\u2019s conflict with China is political and territorial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Pakistan, however, the standoff has continued since both countries were separated in a bloody partition in 1947.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIndia\u2019s hatred for Pakistan is existential and cuts across all political parties, but is especially stark and profound when it comes to the Bharatiya Janata Party of which Jaishankar is a representative,\u201d Zaidi said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the apparent lack of attention towards Pakistan, Singh predicted that India could \u201cinvoke Pakistan at any point\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPakistan can always be brought out of the close by Modi as and when he wants, and it can be used as a proxy for Indian Muslims or invigorating Hindu nationalist tendencies in the country.\u201d

SOURCE:\u00a0AL JAZEERA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Hafsa Adil As the fallout from a recent heated exchange between the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan continues to play out in the public sphere, analysts say both officials put up a \u201cperformance\u201d for their respective domestic audiences. During his\u00a0visit to India\u00a0for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, Pakistan Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari\u00a0urged\u00a0member nations to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":6387,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[183,218,172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asian-issues","category-reports-and-articles","category-172"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6386"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6389,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6386\/revisions\/6389"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}