The Wire Staff 
New Delhi: The Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs has issued a statement clarifying recent remarks made by minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari while in India for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), saying, “Any insinuation, associating Foreign Minister’s remarks with a threat of violence, is not only mischievous but highly irresponsible.”
The statement was referring to reporting on what Bhutto Zardari said at a press conference for Pakistani mediapersons who came to Goa. To a question on India hosting a G20 meeting in Srinagar, he said that it showed India’s “pettiness” and a “show of arrogance to the world that to hell with international law, UNSC resolutions and bilateral agreements, India will hold its events in Kashmir”. “Obviously we condemn it and at the time we will give such a response that it will be remembered,” he said.
In its statement on Sunday (May 7), the Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, “It [the insinuation that Bhutto Zardari was threatening violence] is an attempt to shift focus from the Foreign Minister’s key message of conflict resolution through dialogue and in accordance with international law and UN security council resolutions. The journalistic norms must be respected while reporting on sensitive inter-state matters.”
As The Wire has reported, India and Pakistan both accused each other of supporting terrorism and taking hypocritical postures on the sidelines of the SCO Summit.
“As a foreign minister of an SCO member state, Mr Bhutto Zardari was treated accordingly. As a promoter, justifier and, I am sorry to say, spokesperson of a terrorism industry which is the mainstay of Pakistan, his positions were called out, including at the SCO meetings itself,” Indian external affairs minister S. Jaishankar said.
Bhutto Zardari’s visit to India was a rare trip across the border since high-level contact between the two South Asian countries had come down drastically. But, it was made clear even before he arrived on Indian soil that there would be no bilateral encounter and that the journey was only for the SCO meeting.
The highly charged barbs also mean that it is highly unlikely that Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will visit India for the leaders’ summit in July.