Qureshi condemns Jaishankar’s comments on FM Bilawal

MULTAN: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) senior vice-chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi has strongly condemned Indian Minister for External Affairs S. Jaishankar’s comments about Foreign Minister (FM) Bilawal Bhutto, saying that the statement was against ‘diplomatic norms’, ARY News reported on Saturday.

In a statement, the PTI leader said that he condemns the ‘behaviour adopted by Indian Minister for External Affairs after the departure of Bilawal Bhutto’.

“Pakistan’s foreign minister visited India on your [Jaishankar] invitation,” Shah Mehmood Qureshi said, adding that the country was a member of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

He further said that the Indian minister should have refrained from issuing ‘undiplomatic statements and adopting such behaviour’ towards foreign minister of Pakistan, which has ‘ridiculed the entire nation’.

The former foreign minister noted that the situation in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) is getting worse and the neighbouring country was using it as a shield.

A day earlier, Indian Minister of External Affairs S. Jaishankar said Bilawal Bhutto address to SCO CFM meeting “reveals the mindset of that country. His position was found out and called out.”

‘Let’s not weaponise terrorism for diplomatic point-scoring’

Earlier in the day, FM Bilawal Bhutto – while addressing the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) summit – said that let’s not get caught up in weaponising terrorism for diplomatic-point scoring.

Indian Minister of External Affairs S. Jaishankar addressed the SCO meeting, in which he highlighted the issue of cross-border terrorism.

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

Furthermore, the host reiterated his country’s “long-standing” demand that English be made the third official language of the moot. At the moment Russian and Mandarin are the languages used at the form officially.

Addressing the SCO summit, Bilawal Bhutto reiterated Pakistan’s commitment to multilateralism for maintaining international peace and harmony. “Pakistan remains committed to multilateralism and continues to play a leading role at all international forums.”

Reiterating Pakistan’s strong commitment to SCO he said, “There couldn’t be a more powerful indication of the importance that Pakistan attaches to the SCO than my presence here in Goa for this CFM.”

Bilawal asserted the SCO could be a “key platform for taking the vision of Eurasian connectivity to the next level”, the FO said.