New Delhi: After trying to needle New Delhi on the Kashmir issue recently, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad has now despatched his “special envoy” P. Waytha Moorthy to India. Mr Moorthy on Wednesday evening met external affairs minister S. Jaishankar who tweeted that the two countries have a “special relationship”. Malaysia has been trying to support Pakistan openly ever since the veteran leader became prime minister.
Mr Jaishankar tweeted, “Pleasure to receive Malaysian Minister P. Waytha Moorthy, Spe-cial envoy of PM Mahathir. Appreciate his warm greetings on PM @narendramodi’s victory in the elections. Continue to work together to build on our special relationship.”
Just last week, Dr Mahathir — known for decades for his hardline views on the matter — had created a controversy when he asked “all stakeholders” (on Kashmir) “to abide by the relevant UN Security Council resolutions on J&K” passed way back in 1948-49 that had then called for a plebiscite in the state. As per reports, Malaysia was one of the very few countries globally that had extended critical support to Pakistan to avoid Islamabad’s blacklisting at the meeting of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) at Orlando in the US earlier this year. Malaysia was known to needle India on the Kashmir issue even in the 1990s. But Malaysia got a dose of its own medicine and was seen to back down after it felt the heat following a controversy over the treatment of its own ethnic Tamil minority.
