Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi took to Twitter on Sunday to urge the Indian government to focus more on its domestic concerns instead of ‘behaving like an expansionist nation’.
“It would serve PM Modi’s government and ‘neighbourhood first’ policy well to realise India’s neighbours pose far less of a problem than their own domestic inadequacies, failures and fascism,” the foreign minister said. He called for ‘necessary introspection’ by the Indian government, saying it might help it serve India’s minorities and downtrodden better. The minister urged for a shift in focus away from ‘igniting border disputes with every neighbour’.
Qureshi’s comments come days after the Indian ministry of external affairs rejected Prime Minister Imran Khan’s offer to assist India with cash disbursement among citizens in the country who were hit hard by the coronavirus lockdown.
“Pakistan would do well to recall that they have a debt problem which covers 90% of their GDP. As far as India goes, our stimulus package is as large as the GDP of Pakistan,” MEA spokesperson Anurag Srivastava had said.
Islamabad had regretted India’s response to what it called PM Imran’s ‘goodwill’ gesture.
The recent verbal sparring between the two countries comes against the back-drop of tensions between India and China, and the prevalent contentions between India and Pakistan over the issue of Indian-held Kashmir. According to a statement issued by the Indian ministry of foreign affairs earlier this month, India and China had agreed to resolve their dispute over their shared border in Ladakh region through diplomatic channels. However, a recent tweet by a Chinese diplomat in Islamabad, linking the Ladakh standoff with India ‘unilaterally changing the status quo of Kashmir’, had left many flustered in New Delhi.
Separately, presiding over a meeting of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Islamabad on Sunday, Qureshi said the world has undergone a complete change due to coronavirus pandemic and underlined the need for utilization of modern technology for efficient running of the official matters. He said in this fast changing world, sessions and meetings were being held via video link and other related latest technology. He stressed upon formulation of future strategy and mechanism while keeping in view the negative impacts of the coronavirus.
The minister also thanked the representatives of telecom companies for submitting their valuable suggestions for the promotion of use of modern technology and up-gradation of the ministry on modern lines.
