‘Pakistan Angry As Its 70-Year Investment In Terrorism Is Wasted’: EAM Jaishankar Says Can’t Talk With ‘Terroristan’

Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar on Tuesday (24 September) said that Pakistan was angry over Kashmir as its huge “investments” of 70 years into the terror industry had gone in vain.

He also said that India was okay talking to Pakistan but certainly had a problem restarting dialogue with “Terroristan”, Hindustan Times reported.

“India has no problem talking to Pakistan. But we have a problem talking to Terroristan. And they have to be the former, not the latter,” said Jaishankar, who is also in the United States with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Jaishankar, in the wake of Parliament’s decision to end J&K’s special status, has led Indian diplomatic front against Islamabad’s attempts to malign India’s global image.

Explaining Pakistan PM Imran Khan’s continuous attacks on India, he 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,” adding that Pakistan now sees that its investment in the terror industry to destabilise India has drowned.

During his address at cultural organisation Asia Society in New York, he said that Pakistan had to accept that its model of using terrorism as a legitimate instrument of statecraft does not work any longer.

Citing the example of 26/11 Mumbai attacks, Jaishankar burst the bubble that claimed Kashmir to be at the centre of all the issues between the two countries. He said, the bigger problem was the “mindset” and they needed to move away from terrorism.