India-Pak faceoff over terrorism hogs limelight at Shanghai Co-op meeting

New Delhi: Hitting out at Pakistan for supporting cross-border terrorism, foreign minister S Jaishankar on Friday said that "victims of terrorism do not sit together with its perpetrators to discuss terrorism".

He also launched a blistering attack on his Pakistani counterpart Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and accused him of being a "promoter, justifier and spokesperson of the terrorism industry, which is the mainstay of Pakistan".

Jaishankar told reporters after a meeting of foreign ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in Goa: "They (Pakistan) are committing acts of terrorism... Pakistan's credibility is depleting faster than its forex reserves." Criticising Bhutto Zardari for raking up abrogation of Article 370, which gave special status to J&K, at the meeting, Jaishankar said: "Article 370 is history. Wake up and smell the coffee."

Jaishankar said Bhutto Zardari has come to Goa as foreign minister of a SCO member state. "We don't see anything more than that."

On Pakistan's objection to G20 meetings in J&K, Jaishankar said the country has nothing to do either with the summit or with Srinagar. "They (Pakistan) have nothing to do with G20, nothing to do with even Srinagar and Kashmir," he said.

Instead, Pakistan should talk about "when they will vacate the illegally occupied territories of Jammu and Kashmir", he said.

On ties with China, Jaishankar said he discussed disengagement in the western sector with his Chinese counterpart Qin Gang and affirmed ties are not normal. He reiterated China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is violation of India's sovereignty.

Earlier, in his opening remarks at the SCO meet, Jaishankar called for maintaining territorial integrity and affirmed that channels of finances for terrorist activities must be seized and blocked without distinction.

"While the world was engaged in facing Covid and its consequences, the menace of terrorism continues unabated," he said. "Taking our eyes off this menace would be detrimental to our 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."