Beijing: China on Monday said Pakistan should not be targeted on terrorism at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit this week where PM Modi is likely to raise the issue of Islamabad harbouring terrorists.
During his first foreign visit to the Maldives after re-election, Modi on Saturday indirectly attacked Pakistan, saying state sponsorship of terrorism is the biggest threat the world is facing today. Modi is likely to raise the issue at this week’s summit as part of India’s strategy to isolate Pakistan at multilateral forums but China made clear its ally, Islamabad, should not be targeted.
“In every summit, the institutional building of the SCO will be discussed that would involve economic cooperation and security cooperation particularly on counter-terrorism,” China’s Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Hanhui said.
“Security and development are two major issues of focus for the SCO. The establishment of the SCO is not to target any certain country but the summit of this level will certainly pay attention to major international relation and regional issues,” Zhang said in an indirect reference to Pak, replying if multilateralism would be at the fulcrum of the discussion.
Zhang was addressing the media ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping attending the 19th SCO summit in Kyrgyzstan’s Bishkek and the fifth version of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia in Dushanbe, the capital city of Tajikistan. Modi will meet Xi on the sidelines of the summit where he won’t meet Pakistani PM Imran Khan, citing Islamabad funding anti-India terrorists.
-Gaurav Sharma
