Staff Reporter
India today walked out of a virtual meeting of national security advisers of member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) after the Pakistani representative projected a map that inaccurately depicted the borders of the two countries.
India said that the Pakistani NSA deliberately projected a fictitious map that Pakistan has recently been propagating at the meeting of the National Security Advisers of member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
In response to questions on today’s meeting of NSAs of SCO member states, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said this was in blatant disregard to the advisory by the host Russia against it and in violation of the norms of the meeting. He said, the Indian side left the meeting in protest at that juncture after consultation with the host. Mr Srivastava said, as was to be expected, Pakistan then went on to present a misleading view of this meeting.
Government sources said, Pakistan’s use of a fictitious map as a backdrop for its representative depicting sovereign Indian territories as part of Pakistan is a blatant violation of the SCO Charter and against all its established norms of safeguarding the sovereignty and territorial integrity of SCO Member States. Sources said, India issued its strong objection to the use of this illegal map by Pakistan. The Russian side, as the Chair, tried very hard to persuade Pakistan not to do so.
Mr. Nikolai Patrushev, the Secretary of the National Security Council of Russian Federation has conveyed that he was personally very grateful to NSA Ajit Doval for attending the SCO Summit. Sources also said Russia does not support what Pakistan has done and hopes that Pakistan’s provocative act will not affect India’s participation in SCO and definitely not cast any shadow on Mr Patrushev’s warm personal relationship with NSA for whom he has the highest regard. Mr Patrushev hopes to see NSA Ajit Doval at forthcoming events.