What S Jaishankar said on Pakistan economic crisis: ‘No country will ever…’

As Pakistan faces a severe economic crisis, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said that no country can come out of the difficult situation “if its basic industry is terrorism.” Jaishankar made the comments while speaking at the annual Asia Economic Dialogue organised by the external affairs ministry in Pune.

“The reality of this particular relationship (India-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 walk around that…”, Jaishankar said.

“And we mustn’t be in denial of what are very fundamental problems in that relationship. And just as a country has to fix its economic issues, a country has to fix its political issues, too. A country has to fix its social issues too. No country will ever come out of a difficult situation and become prosperous power if its basic industry is terrorism,” Jaishankar added.

He also said that it is in nobody’s interest is any country- least of all a neighbouring country- gets into severe economic crisis.

“There’s no doubt role or salience of Asia will increase. Asia is growing because Asia has been global, what we shouldn’t fall for is ‘Asia for Asians’, that rhetoric is misleading, appeals to primitive chauvinism. It actually has deep strategic intent behind it,” S Jaishankar said.

“If I were to pick three big issues in the forefront of my thoughts, one I would actually reflect on our neighbourhood, partly because we are in the neighbourhood, 3 of us,” Jaishankar added.

The inaugural session of the Asia Economic Dialogue was a conversation between S Jaishankar, Lyonpo Namgay Tshering, Bhutan’s finance minister, and Ibrahim Ameer, Maldives’ finance minister.