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By India Today News Desk: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar greeted Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, China’s Qin Gang and other foreign ministers with a namaste on their arrival at the venue of the India-hosted conclave of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) on Friday.
Calling the greeting “civilised”, Bhutto said: “In Sindh, we welcome each other like this.”
“Dr S Jaishankar never made me feel like our bilateral ties impacted our engagement at the SCO FM’s meeting,” he added.
Though the two-day SCO Council of Foreign Ministers’ meeting began at the Taj Exotica Resort here on Thursday evening with a reception hosted by Jaishankar, the main deliberations took place on Friday.
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The external affairs minister greeted each visiting foreign minister with a namaste and there was no handshake.
“India violated international commitment with the removal of special status for J&K,” Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said in Goa. He was addressing Pak journalists reporting on the SCO meeting.
At the conclave, Jaishankar said: “The channel of finances for terrorist activities must be blocked without any distinction and terrorism in all its forms, including cross-border terrorism, must be stopped.” He said this in the presence of Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari.
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Taking eyes off terrorism would be detrimental to the security interests of the grouping and that when the world was engaged in facing COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences, the menace of terrorism continued unabated, S Jaishankar said, in an apparent reference to Pakistan.
The external affairs minister further said that India firmly believes there can be no justification for terrorism and noted that combating the menace is one of the original mandates of the SCO.
“We must not allow anybody – individual or state – to hide behind non-state actors,” he said, adding that, while connectivity is key to progress, it must come with respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all member states.
(With input from PTI)
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