AMN / NEW DELHI
India has said matters related to India-Pakistan relations are purely bilateral in nature and have no scope for involvement of any third country.
External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar yesterday said this in a response to queries on the comments made by the Chinese Ambassador to India on a trilateral Summit between India, China and Pakistan.
Mr Kumar said, New Delhi has not received any such suggestion from the Chinese government and it considers the statement as the personal opinion of the Ambassador.
Chinese ambassador to India Luo Zhaohui suggested Monday that China, India and Pakistan have a trilateral meet on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meetings. He also said India and China cannot afford another Doklam, referring to the standoff last year between troops of the two countries at the trijunction with Bhutan.
Later, responding to the remarks on India-Pakistan relations, Raveesh Kumar, official spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs, said: “We have seen reports on comments made by the Chinese ambassador in this matter. We have not received any such suggestion from the Chinese government. We consider the statement as the personal opinion of the ambassador. Matters related to India-Pakistan relations are purely bilateral in nature and have no scope for involvement of any third country.”
Luo, who was Beijing’s envoy to Islamabad from 2006 to 2010, floated the trilateral meeting idea at a day-long seminar organised by the Chinese embassy on the theme ‘Beyond Wuhan: How far and fast can China-India relations go’ which was attended, among others, by NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant, former Indian ambassadors to China Ashok Kantha and Nalin Surie, Russian ambassador Nikolay Kudashev and Bhutanese envoy Vetsop Namgyel.
“Security cooperation is one of the three pillars of the SCO. Some Indian friends suggested that India, China and Pakistan may have some kind of trilateral summit on the sidelines of SCO. So, if China, Russia and Mongolia can have a trilateral summit, then why not India, China and Pakistan?” he told the gathering, an assortment of China-watchers and specialists from the strategic community in the Capital.
After a 20-minute speech on India-China relations, when he was asked about the trilateral meeting suggestion, Luo said he personally considers it “a good and constructive idea”.