No change in Pakistan's position on Kashmir, says Bilawal in first visit to India n Urges New Delhi to revoke illegal acts of 5 August 2019 to ensure conducive environment for talks n Says India should not hold sports hostage to its foreign policy, politics n India is convening G-20 Leaders' Summit in disputed territory n What Kulbhushan Jadhav was doing in Pakistan, Bilawal asks India to explain.

 

GOA /ISLAMABAD    -    Foreign Minister Bilaw­al Bhutto Zardari Friday ruled out any change in Pakistan's position on the Kashmir issue. The onus is on India to build a conducive environ­ment for talks, he added.

Addressing a news conference in Goa in In­dia, he said his visit to India is solely aimed at expressing Pakistan's commitment with the SCO. He, however, said it has been Pakistan Peoples Party's consis­tent stance that Islam­abad and New Delhi should have good rou­tine bilateral relations.

The foreign minister further said that Paki­stan Peoples Party al­ways advocated the nor­malisation of ties with India but the latter's unilateral action of re­voking a special status of Kashmir had under­mined the environment. The unilateral actions of August 5, 2019, had not only violated inter­national laws and the United Nations Securi­ty Council’s resolutions but also the bilateral agreements, he added.

The Indian violation, he said, had created a trust deficit as the country could unilaterally violate the bilateral agreements in the future too.

Asked about the Indian deci­sion of hosting the G20 summit in the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu & Kashmir (IIOJK), the foreign minister said, “Obvious­ly we condemn it and at the time we will give such a response that it will be remembered.”

“It is a show of Indian arro­gance to the world that to hell with the international law, to hell with the United Nations Se­curity Council resolutions, to hell with any bilateral agree­ments, India will hold their event in Kashmir.” 

‘SHANGHAI COOPERATION ORGANISATION’

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari also stressed a collective action by the regional countries under Shanghai Cooperation Organisa­tion (SCO) to jointly address the common issues, particularly cli­mate change, poverty and ter­rorism. He said geopolitics must not affect the commitment to ad­dress the challenges and learn lessons for the collective good.

“The solution to our collective challenges should be collective action, not a divided reaction… We must isolate these issues from hyper-partisan geopoli­tics if we are to succeed,” he said in his address at the SCO Coun­cil of Foreign Ministers meeting, held in the resort city.

Chairman of the SCO Council of Foreign Ministers, Dr. S. Jais­hankar, the foreign ministers of SCO member states, the Sec­retary General of SCO, and Di­rector, Executive Committee of SCO-RATS attended the meet­ing. Bilawal said Pakistan con­siders the SCO a key regional platform comprising countries, which are bound together by longstanding historical, cultur­al, civilisational and geograph­ical ties.

“Our excuse cannot be we were too divided to put up a fight!,” he said. He highlighted Pakistan’s vision of enhanced regional economic connectivity and win-win cooperation.

The foreign minister said the climate crisis posed an existen­tial threat to humanity and pro­posed the establishment of a Joint Working Group in SCO on Climate Change.

He mentioned that Pakistan recently faced the greatest cli­mate catastrophe and stressed that the planet could only be saved from the ravages of cli­mate change if the internation­al community worked in unison.

He emphasized holding the developed world up to their commitment to providing US $ 100 billion annually for cli­mate finance. On connectivi­ty, he said Pakistan looked for­ward to hosting the ‘Conference on Transport Connectivity for Regional Prosperity’ in Septem­ber 2023.

He said the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor could be a force multiplier for region­al connectivity, adding that the route CPEC offered all countries to take the journey further and connect the dots towards full regional economic integration.

He congratulated Iran, which would soon become the newest member of the SCO family and welcomed the accession of Bah­rain, Kuwait, Maldives, Myan­mar and the United Arab Emir­ates as new Dialogue Partners.

He said poverty still plagued this region and mentioned that Pakistan was proud of the in­ternationally acclaimed Benazir Income Support Program which ushered in a silent revolution of poverty alleviation together with women’s empowerment.

He said the establishment of the Special Working Group on Poverty Alleviation proposed by Pakistan would be a step in that direction. Bilawal termed the collective security of the region a joint responsibility and said terrorism continued to threaten global security.

“Let’s not get caught up in weaponizing terrorism for dip­lomatic point-scoring,” he said, and recalled that he spoke as the son whose mother was assassi­nated at the hands of terrorists. “I feel the pain of this loss, em­pathize with victims across the world in a way most can’t.”

‘CONFLATING NON-STATE ACTORS WITH STATE ACTORS’

He said Pakistan was firm­ly committed to being part of regional and global efforts for eradicating this menace that re­quired a comprehensive and col­lective approach to address the root cause as well as the threats posed by specific groups.“It re­quires that we let this challenge unite us to fight it rather than divide us to become its victim. Our success requires us to iso­late this issue from geo-political partisanship,” he said.

He said given that many SCO members confront the men­ace of terrorism, often from the same terrorist groups, the SCO RATS needs to be further strengthened to effectively ad­dress the growing threats to peace and security.

“We must stop conflating non-state actors with state actors. Condemn all forms of terrorism including state-sponsored ter­rorism,” he pointed out.

On Afghanistan, he called upon the international com­munity to meaningfully engage with the Interim Afghan Gov­ernment to better understand and influence the course of events, especially on girls’ right to education and security.

He called on the Interim Af­ghan authorities to uphold their commitment to not allowing the use of Afghan soil for terrorism.

“A peaceful and stable Afghan­istan is a key not only to region­al integration and economic co­operation but also to global peace and stability,” he said.

Bilawal said Pakistan re­mained committed to multilat­eralism and continues to play leading role at all internation­al forums including the United Nations, for forging friendly re­lations among nations and sup­porting the peaceful settlement of longstanding international disputes.

He commended China’s re­cent role in bridging differences between Saudi Arabia and Iran and said that “When great pow­ers play the role of peacemak­er, we can unlock the potential of peace while paving the way for greater cooperation, region­al integration, and economic op­portunities for our peoples.”

He expressed Pakistan’s un­wavering support and com­mitment to the SCO’s goals and objectives, saying that SCO rep­resented the future with 40 percent of the world’s popula­tion and almost a quarter of the world’s GDP.

Meanwhile, Bilawal Bhut­to told The Hindu in an exclu­sive interview during his visit to Goa that India’s decision to re­organise IIOJK in August 2019 has made it “difficult” for those in Pakistan who advocated en­gagement in the past. The resto­ration of statehood to the union territory could be “one step”. However, he said that the action was the “only thing” holding up India-Pakistan talks at present, and that he had not requested any bilateral meeting with his SCO host, External Affairs Min­ister S. Jaishankar as a result. 

He also said that the decision on whether Pakistan PM Sheh­baz Sharif will travel to India in July, to join Russian and Chinese Presidents and other leaders in­vited by PM Narendra Modi to Delhi for the Shanghai Coopera­tion Organisation (SCO) Summit is still not made, but Pakistan is committed to the SCO process.

“There is genuine willing­ness on the Pakistan side, to ad­dress all issues and resolve all issues through dialogue. But the actions on August 5 really slammed the door shut on that process,” he said. “We would like India, the Indian govern­ment to create an environment conducive to talks and as soon as we return to the status quo of August 4 2019, I believe we can engage in a meaningful di­alogue.”

Meanwhile, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari also said Pakistan could not engage in any meaningful dialogue with India till the lat­ter reviews its unilateral and il­legal actions of August 5, 2019.

In an interview with ‘India To­day’, Foreign Minister said Paki­stan wants to combat the men­ace of terrorism because it has caused the largest number of casualties among any other SCO countries. He asked India to ex­plain what Kulbhushan Jadhav was doing in Pakistan, carrying out terrorist activities in Paki­stan, does it not come under the cross border terrorism?

He said the victims of the 2007 Samjhauta Express bomb­ing had yet to see any justice