External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Thursday said that SAARC is not just a story of missed opportunities but also of deliberate obstacles, one of them being terrorism. Jaishankar said this, without directly mentioning Pakistan, at the SAARC foreign ministers’ meeting on Thursday. While Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi boycotted Jaishankar’s statement, senior official and Pakistan foreign ministry spokesperson Mohammad Faisal was present at the meeting. “Ours is really not just a story of missed opportunities but also of deliberate obstacles. Terrorism is among them. In our view, elimination of terrorism in all its forms is a precondition not only for fruitful cooperation, but also for the very survival of our region itself,” Jaishankar told the meeting, which took place on the sidelines of the UNGA. “I reiterate our leaders’ statement in Kathmandu in 2014, where they called for full and effective implementation of SAARC Regional Convention on Suppression of Terrorism, including through enacting necessary legislation at the national level to root out terrorism. The relevance of SAARC would be determined by these actions against terrorism and this will decide our collective journey of the future becoming more productive,” he said. He said the example of South Asia Satellite is instructive of how India has been taking up initiatives for prosperity in the neighbourhood. South Asia Satellite, laun-ched in 2017 with an intention to arrive at scientific solutions to address poverty in the SAARC region, has impact in sectors like health, education, disaster response weather forecasting, he said. Qureshi did not attend the SAARC foreign ministers’ meeting as long as Jaishankar was present. He came after Jaishankar left the venue, and said, “Do you think I will sit down with the butcher of Kashmir?” An Indian official, referring to Qureshi’s boycott and remark, said: “Such drama will not work. Pakistan has to create a conducive atmosphere for the SAARC process to go ahead.”
