New Delhi: Pakistan foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s behaviour at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Goa has earned him both brickbats and bouquets at home. The first visit by a senior Pakistani official to India in 12 years was derided by many people as a diplomatic disaster. And it has led to war of words between Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and Zardari’s Pakistan People’s Party.
While PPP supporters could not see anything wrong with their chairman’s behaviour, PTI supporters could see no right. At a rally in Lahore, Khan criticised Bilawal, questioning the trip to India.
“Pakistan was humiliated,” said the former prime minister. “How the Indian foreign minister’s behaviour was when Bilawal went to India is a basis for shame for all of us.”
After the summit, Jaishankar called Bilawal a “spokesperson for the terror industry”.
Former federal minister and PTI member Fawad Chaudhry had earlier tweeted saying that “Pakistan’s foreign policy is dead”.
Reacting to India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar’s remarks, PTI member Shireen Mazari called the visit “unbelievable absurdity of Bajwa plan’.
‘Indian funded PTI’ vs ‘Ideal statesman’
Many local newspapers and political observers, on the other hand, hailed Bilawal’s visit, describing his demeanour as “subtle”.
The Express Tribune went called Bilawal “an ideal statesperson”, who has “accomplished all that Pakistan wanted to from his Goa visit”. The report said he “exhibited all an ideal statesman needs to be armed with to defend his beleaguered country’s interests around the world in tumultuous times like these.”
While Dawn, the leading national daily in Pakistan, has yet to put out an opinion piece on this, the paper ran a news report on Bilawal’s press conference in Karachi.
Bhutto Zardari told SCO member nations not to “weaponis[e] terrorism for diplomatic point scoring” in a remark directed at Jaishankar.
Celebrities too took to Twitter to share their thoughts. “A good host upholds the value of hospitality and treat guests with dignity and respect, regardless of any underlying political or ideological conflicts,” actor Adnan Siddiqui wrote. “Ultimately, the act of demeaning a guest serves no productive purpose and only vitiates the situation.”
PTI vice chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi slammed India for being a poor host.
“Bilawal Bhutto went there on the invitation of the Indian foreign minister and Pakistan is a member of this forum; Bilawal was his guest, but he ridiculed the Pakistani foreign minister,” he said.
This was the first visit by a Pakistani foreign minister to India since July 2011, when then-foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar had travelled for peace negotiations.
(Edited by Prashant)