Updated: September 8, 2020 7:44:14 am
The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Express Adda.
Two days before his trip to Moscow, where he is likely to hold talks on the border standoff with Chinese Foreign Minister and State Councilor Wang Yi, Foreign Minister S Jaishankar on Monday laid out the broad outlines. of the next bilateral conversation by stressing that “The state of the border cannot be separated from the state of the relationship.”
Acknowledging that the current situation along the Royal Line of Control was “very serious”, Jaishankar said it required “very, very deep talks” between the two sides at a “political level”.
He spoke at Express Adda moderated by C Raja Mohan, Contributing Editor and Director of The Indian Express, Institute for South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore; and associate editor and diplomatic correspondent Shubhajit Roy.
Jaishankar will travel to Moscow to attend the meeting of foreign ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization between 9 and 11 September, where he is likely to have his first in-person meeting with his Chinese counterpart since the confrontation began with Begginings of may.
He said that “if peace and quiet at the border is not a given, then it cannot be that the rest of the relationship continues on the same basis.”
“If you look at the last 30 years, because there was peace and quiet on the border, there were also problems … I’m not ignoring it, that allowed the rest of the relationship to progress. As a result, China became (India’s) second largest trading partner … Clearly, peace and quiet are the foundation of the relationship. “
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There are several agreements with China on border management dating back to 1993, he said, and these “stipulate quite clearly” that both countries will keep forces to a minimum at the border.
“And the subsequent agreements that we had, shape the behavior of the troops and what are the restrictions they should have. If they are not met, very, very important questions are raised. At this moment, I observe that this very serious situation has been occurring since the beginning of May. This requires very, very deep conversations between the two parties at the political level. “
Jaishankar’s long-awaited new book, The India Way: Strategies for an Uncertain World (Harper Collins India), was published last weekend.
When asked what was a tangible diplomatic marker to signal progress in the negotiations, he said: “(I have) a very practical problem at the moment, which is the issue of disconnection and de-escalation.”
When asked how he sees the future of the India-China relationship, Jaishankar said that “this is an area where my crystal ball is a bit clouded.”
He said he would leave it “open” and that both countries “should try to find a mutual accommodation, because their ability to do so will determine (whether there is) an Asian century or not.”
Jaishankar’s long-awaited new book, The India Way: Strategies for an Uncertain World (Harper Collins India), was published last weekend.
Regarding India’s relationship with the United States, the Foreign Minister, who has served as Indian ambassador to both China and the United States, called the “suspicion of the United States a very Lutyens’ Delhi problem” and He added that “the Indian street really realized the value of the American relationship long before Lutyens did in Delhi.”
India, he said, has “engaged successive US presidents who had different views of the world, different priorities, with a focus on how to advance the relationship and our national interests.”
“We have to see what was happening in the United States from the perspective of our interests… If there is the administration of the day, I have involved that administration, I have involved that administration much better than most of the world. I have advanced Indian national interests. “
On not engaging with Pakistan, or using “zero diplomacy” as a tool, the foreign minister said “it is not a question of zero diplomacy.” He explained that “I have a central interest, I have a problem and therefore I am not participating.”
The problem, he said, is about “who is setting the terms of the engagement, what are the terms of the engagement, what is the framework of the engagement” and “what is the type of conversation, who will determine who is making a move? agenda, determine the agenda in some way. “
“For any country, and also a country like India, to give up that option … I don’t think that’s the foreign policy we should have.”
Jaishankar will travel to Moscow to attend the meeting of foreign ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization from 9-11 September.
Speaking specifically about Pakistan, Jaishankar said that India cannot continue to participate due to its “attachment to cross-border terrorism all these years” and it cannot be accepted as “normal and engage with them on the terms they have set”.
On Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who recently resigned for health reasons, Jaishankar referred to his term as an “era” and said it had “extraordinary” significance for Japan’s relationship with India. Jaishankar said that Abe not only changed India’s relationship, but even the way the Japanese think about the relationship with India.
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Among those who attended the Adda and interacted with Jaishankar were Russian Ambassador Nikolay Kudasev, Acting British High Commissioner Jan Thompson; The ambassador of the European Union, Ugo Astuto; the Italian Ambassador, Vincenzo de Luca; the economist and former minister YK Alagh and Manjeet Kripalani of Gateway House.
Jaishankar is likely to visit Tehran during the transit to Moscow. This would be the second visit by a senior Indian leader to Tehran in the span of a week. Defense Minister Rajnath Singh stopped in Iran on his return from Moscow and met with his Iranian counterpart on Sunday.
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