The Foreign Minister of India Subrahmanyam Jaishankar stated on Tuesday that his country and Pakistan were hoping to “find a solution to the issue of years-old cross-border terrorism.”
Leaders of seven regional nations saw the historic event on Sunday at Rashtrapati Bhavan, the president’s palace in New Delhi, where Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was sworn in for a record third term. This ceremony highlighted the government’s “neighbourhood first” policy. But ties and challenges with China and Pakistan were different, Jaishankar told reporters, after resuming office for a second consecutive term.
We would like to work with Pakistan to resolve the long-standing problem of cross-border terrorism. That can’t be a decent neighbor’s policy, according to Jaishankar.
The heads of state of the two nations used X for diplomatic purposes on Monday.
In Pakistan’s initial reaction to the election results from across the border, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his elder brother, former Prime Minister Nawaz, congratulated Modi.
Nawaz Sharif, the leader of the ruling PML-N and a guest of PM Modi’s first inauguration in 2014, added more details to the leaders’ interaction.
Modi reaffirmed India’s commitment to peace but connected it to a tough stance on security, particularly in light of Delhi’s accusations of cross-border terrorism, in response to Nawaz’s call for collective peace in South Asia.
The fact that PM Shehbaz was noticeably omitted from the list of regional leaders invited to Modi’s oath-taking ceremony on Sunday was a significant diplomatic snub that brought attention to the ongoing chilly ties between the two nations.
Regarding relations with China, Jaishankar stated that India will concentrate on resolving the boundary disputes with China, which have long caused tensions in relations between the two nations.
“We will concentrate on finding solutions to the border issues that still exist with China,” he stated.
The 3,800-kilometer shared border between China and India, much of it not clearly marked, was the site of a 1962 conflict between the two nuclear-armed countries.
