With Pak FM in Attendance, EAM Jaishankar Takes Indirect Jibe At Pakistan On Terrorism

Goa: At the SCO Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) meeting in Goa on Friday, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar spoke out strongly against terrorism in the presence of his Pakistani counterpart, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, and cautioned the group’s members that turning a blind eye to the threat would be detrimental to their own security interests.

”We firmly believe that there can be no justification for terrorism and it must be stopped in all its forms and manifestations, including cross-border terrorism. The channel of finances for terrorist activities must be seized and blocked without distinction,” he said chairing the key meeting, also attended by Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and the foreign ministers of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and the Kyrgyz Republic.

EAM Jaishankar claimed that SCO members did not need to be reminded that fighting terrorism was one of the organization’s founding goals and noted that the threat persisted even as the globe struggled to deal with COVID-19 and its after-effects. This was a clear allusion to Pakistan’s continuous backing of interstate terrorism in India.

At the meeting venue in Goa, Jaishankar earlier greeted the foreign ministers, including the foreign minister of Pakistan, with a “Namaste.” Even though they greeted one another and exchanged pleasantries at the gala dinner thrown by the Indian minister last night in advance of the CFM conference, Jaishankar and Bilawal did not shake hands.