New Pakistan map: Ajit Doval walks out of SCO meet

The online meeting of the National Security Advisors at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation  (SCO) on Tuesday got riddled with unpleasantness and controversy after Pakistan used a map showing Indian territories as its own as a backdrop for its representative. Indian NSA Mr Ajit Doval raised strong objection to Pakistan using the illegal map and the Indian side walked out of the meeting saying such an act was a blatant violation of the SCO Charter.

“At the meeting of the National Security Advisers (NSAs) of member states of the SCO, hosted by the Chair of the SCO (Russia), the Pakistani NSA deliberately projected a fictitious map that Pakistan has recently been propagating.  This was in blatant disregard to the advisory by the host against it and in violation of the norms of the meeting.  After consultation with the host, the Indian side left the meeting in protest at that juncture. As was to be expected, Pakistan then went on to present a misleading view of this meeting,” Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said.

Pakistan is trying to use all forums to internationalise the Kashmir issue despite the fact that forums like SCO do not allow bilateral issues to be brought to the table. According to sources, Russia, as the Chair, tried very hard to persuade Pakistan not to do so but its representative -- Dr. Moeed Yusuf, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on National Security – continued to use the “new political map”  as a backdrop.

“India conveyed clearly that 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.

Mr Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of the National Security Council of Russian Federation, conveyed that Russia does not support what Pakistan has done. Sources said Russia hoped 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’s said he hopes to see NSA at the forthcoming events.

Pakistan in a statement depicted another picture saying the Mr Dovals’ objections were overruled at the SCO meeting and the forum agreed to Pakistan’s position as a result Dr. Moeed Yusuf conducted the SCO meeting with Pakistan’s new political map as background for the discussions.