Prime Minister NarendraModi on Thursday told Chinese President Xi Jinping that his countrys “all-weather friend” Pakistan must take concrete action against terrorism as “proposed” to it by India and that his efforts to develop peaceful bilateral relations with the western neighbour had been “derailed”.
The issue came up during Modi’s meeting here with Xi, theirfirst since China allowed the UN Security Council to declare Pakistan-basedchief of Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) terror outfit Masood Azhar as an internationalterrorist on May 1, by lifting its ‘technical hold’ which had been blocking themove for around 10 years.
The Prime Minister told the Chinese President that India hasa consistent policy that all issues between India and China should be discussedthrough a bilateral mechanism, Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale told mediapersons after the meeting on the sidelines of the Shanghai CooperationOrganisation (SCO) Summit.
“There was a brief discussion,” Gokhale said whenasked whether Pakistan and terrorism emanating from there figured in the talksbetween Modi and Xi.
“We look for a peaceful settlement (with Pakistan)through negotiations,” Gokhale quoted Modi as telling Xi.
The Prime Minister told Xi that he had made efforts to buildcordial relations with Pakistan but those were “derailed”, theForeign Secretary said.
“The Prime Minister did inform President XI thatPakistan needs to create an atmosphere free of terrorism and that at this stagewe do not see it happening as yet,” Gokhale said.
“Therefore, we expect Pakistan to take concrete actionon the issues that India has proposed, the areas of concerns that we haveflagged to Pakistan.And Pakistan should take concrete action in thisregard,” the Foreign Secretary quoted Modi as telling Xi.The clear message given by Modi to Xi assumessignificance against the backdrop of the consistent efforts made by China,which considers itself as “all-weather friend” of Pakistan, to stallan international attempt to proscribe Masood Azhar by the UN Security Counciltill recently.