UNI
New Delhi, Feb 23: Amid Pakistan’s deep economic crisis, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Thursday virtually ruled out helping the neighbour come out of its economic mess, and said Islamabad must first fix the issue of terrorism that it has been exporting to India.
Speaking at the annual Asia Economic Dialogue organised by the Ministry of External Affairs in Pune, EAM said bluntly that terrorism emanating from Pakistan is a fundamental issue that India cannot and must not ignore, and that as a politician he would also take into consideration what the public feels about the issue.
“It’s in nobody’s interest that a country, least of all a neighbouring country, gets into severe economic difficulty. Nobody sensible, nobody mature would even nurse that thought. But it’s an equal fact that when any country gets into a serious economic problem that country has to make policy choices and governance decisions to get themselves out of it,” he said.
He said that other countries cannot solve the problem if that country is not prepared to solve it themselves, and what the world can do is to provide options and a support system.
He reminded the audience that India too went through a difficult economic situation earlier. “Now I want all of us to remember that we went through this 30 years ago; so this is not something that happens to ‘other’ people. It also happened to us, it happened to us not once, but maybe not with the same severity, at various other points of time in our modern history as well.”
EAM Jaishankar said that the reality of the relationship with Pakistan is that “it has a fundamental issue which we cannot, and we must not avoid, and that issue is that of terrorism.”
“Because the moment you start doing this walkaround, you know, let’s find a joint statement which will, you know, get us agreed language. You know, let us reach out at this point and see where this goes… that’s been the talk of the last 75 years.
“And look where it got us. I think we need clarity, and we mus’nt be in denial of what are fundamental problems in that relationship.
“And just as a country has to fix its economic issue, a country has to fix its political issue too. A country has to fix its social issue.
“No country is going to come out of a difficult situation and become a prosperous power if its basic industry is terrorism,” EAM said bluntly.
“The amount of changes which need to be made are also changes pertaining to that. I think that remains a very major problem. I also think today as someone in politics if I were to look at any big decision I am making, I would also look at what is the public sentiment. I would have a pulse what do my people feel about it,” he said.
