External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Wednesday, September 25, that Pakistan has built a terrorism industry over the last 70 years to fuel unrest in Jammu and Kashmir and the Indian government cannot have a dialogue with a country that sponsors terrorism.
Addressing a New York audience at cultural organization Asia Society, Jaishankar said: "They have to accept the model which they have built for themselves, no longer works. You cannot in this day and age, conduct policy using terrorism as a legitimate instrument of statecraft that is at the heart of the issue. We have no problem in talking to Pakistan, we have a problem talking to terroristan."
He underlined that although the Indian government's move of abrogating the special status granted to J&K through Article 370 has no implication for India's external boundaries, Pakistan's reaction to it reflects its frustration and anger.
"We are sort of reformatting this within our existing boundaries. It obviously drew a reaction from Pakistan, it drew a reaction from China. These are two very different reactions. I think, for Pakistan, it was a country which has really created an entire industry of terrorism to deal with the Kashmir issue. In my view, it's actually bigger than Kashmir, I think they have created it for India," the MEA said.
"So theirs is today a reaction of anger, of frustration in many ways, because you have built an entire industry over a long period of time," he added.
Jaishankar recalled that the lack of development and opportunity, which stemmed from Kashmir's inability to attract investment from the outside, led to "a sense of alienation, alienation to separatism, separatism used for terrorism."
"What was actually meant to help Kashmir ended up in a way where the bridge became a barrier," he said.
Pakistan has time and again tried to internationalise the Kashmir issue, appealing various nations to intervene in the Indian government's decision. Addressing the 42nd session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva, India had asserted that the handling of Article 370 of the constitution was the country's internal affair.
Secretary (East) in the External Affairs Ministry Vijay Thakur Singh had said that the decision was taken in order to extend the Indian government's welfare programs and schemes to Jammu and Kashmir, and better implementation of them.
On the other hand, Pakistan's long-time Turkey recently highlighted the current situation in the Valley at the United Nations General Assembly.
Stressing that the stability and prosperity of South Asia cannot be separated from Kashmir, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday that "eight million people are stuck" in Indian Kashmir despite the UN resolutions.
