On July 30, Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar, without taking the name of Pakistan at the SCO foreign minister’s meeting, said that there must be zero tolerance for terrorism in all its manifestations. At the meeting at Tashkent, Pakistan’s newly appointed foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and other counterparts from China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan were present. Foreign Minister Jaishankar also called upon Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) to fight the new types of terrorism and new world threats such as hunger.
Following the meeting, S Jaishankar tweeted, “Highlighted that world faces an energy and food crisis due to disruptions from the Covid pandemic and Ukraine conflict. This needs to be urgently addressed. Response required includes resilient and diversified supply chains as well as reformed multilateralism.”
He further talked about the position of India in Afghanistan and pointed out the humanitarian assistance provided to Afghanistan in the form of wheat, vaccines, medicines and clothing. He talked about the potential of Chabahar port for the economic future of SCO. He said, “Spoke of the economic progress in India, stressing the relevance of startups and innovation. Cooperation in traditional medicine is in the common interest of SCO members.”
Contrary to S Jaishankar’s emphasis on using the Chabahar Port of Iran by the SCO partners, Bilawal Bhutto talked about the CPEC project, which is China and Pakistan’s connectivity project. However, reports suggest that Bhutto’s elementary knowledge of foreign affairs stood nowhere in front of India’s foreign minister.
During the meeting, the foreign ministers finalized the agenda for the upcoming Samarkand summit, where Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Chinese President Xi Jinping will take part along with their other counterparts. The upcoming summit will be the first time PM Modi and President Xi will meet since the stand-off between Indian and Chinese troops in 2020.
In a statement, the Indian government said, “The meeting discussed the preparations for the forthcoming SCO Summit of Heads of State scheduled to be held in Samarkand on 15-16 September 2022 and witnessed a dialogue on international and regional issues.”
Reportedly, China and Pakistan foreign ministers had bilateral talks with the Taliban’s acting foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi. Despite India’s strong-worded opposition to the inclusion of third countries in CPEC, Wang talked about China’s support for the extension of the project into Afghanistan.
Speaking about India, Bhutto told WION, “India is our neighbour. You can choose a lot of things in your life, but you can’t choose your neighbour. We have to live with one another. Unfortunately, the event of August 2019, the recent Islamophobic statements by officials of the ruling party obviously make it difficult for us to engage constructively.”
Bhutto was referring to the abrogation of Article 370 in Kashmir that happened in August 2019 and alleged derogatory comments by former BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma. Interestingly, either he was ill-informed, or he chose to skip the fact that what Sharma said was in retaliation to the provocation by another panellist. He further said there were no plans for talks between India’s PM and Pakistan’s PM during the September summit.