With India holding the presidency this year, the country received for the first time since 2011 a high-level visit from Pakistan, as foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari's arrival to the coastal state made headlines on Thursday
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Sunday talked about the visit of his Pakistani counterpart Bilawal Bhutto Zardari for the foreign minister's meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and said that he is a good host for a good guest.
His comments came after a question on his strong remarks against Pakistan during the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit. In a hard-hitting attack, S Jaishankar called him the "promoter, justifier and spokesperson of a terrorism industry".
"As a promoter, justifier and spokesperson of a terrorism industry which is the mainstay of Pakistan, his positions were called out and countered including at the SCO meeting itself," EAM Dr S Jaishankar had said. With India holding the presidency this year, the country received for the first time since 2011 a high-level visit from Pakistan, as foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari's arrival to the coastal state made headlines on Thursday.
He attributed his outburst to Pakistan Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari having spoken about "everything else other than the SCO". “If you look at what his public utterances were outside in the press conference and other interviews, he hasn’t spoken about the SCO at all. He has spoken about everything else pertaining to India,” the minister said.
Zardari spoke about politics, passed value judgments on Kashmir, the G20 and the BBC documentary, he added. “As I said, other than the SCO he has spoken about everything else. So, what do I do as a host? If I have a guest who is a good guest, I am a good host,” Jaishankar said.
On Bhutto Zardari's comments on tackling terrorism, Jaishankar had said that Pakistan's credibility in dealing with is depleting even faster than their forex reserves. Asked whether there could be talks between India and Pakistan on combating the menace, the external affairs minister said, "Victims of terrorism do not sit together with perpetrators of terrorism to discuss terrorism."
(With inputs from PTI)