India Rejects Joint Defense Statement at Key China-Led Summit
India declined to back a joint statement at the China-led Shanghai Cooperation Organization meet, marking a rare public rift within the security bloc and highlighting unresolved tensions following its near-war with Pakistan last month.
'On our side, India wanted concerns on terrorism reflected in the document which was not acceptable to one particular country,' Randhir Jaiswal, spokesperson for India's Ministry of External Affairs, told reporters in New Delhi on Thursday, without naming any nation.
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NEW DELHI/BEIJING (Reuters) -Defence ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting in China were unable to adopt a joint statement at the end of their talks due to a lack of consensus on referring to "terrorism", the Indian foreign ministry said on Thursday. SCO is a 10-nation Eurasian security and political grouping whose members include China, Russia, India, Pakistan, and Iran. Their defence ministers' meeting was held as a precursor to the annual summit of its leaders set for the autumn. "Certain members, member countries, could not reach consensus on certain issues and hence the document could not be finalised on our side," Indian foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told reporters at a weekly media briefing. "India wanted concerns on terrorism reflected in the document, which was not acceptable to one particular country and therefore the statement was not adopted," he said, without naming the country. Indian media reported that New Delhi had refused to sign the document after it omitted reference to the April 22 attack on Hindu tourists in Indian Kashmir, in which 26 people were killed. India blamed Pakistan for the attack but Islamabad rejected the accusation. The attack led to the worst fighting in decades between the nuclear-armed neighbours after India struck what it called "terrorist infrastructure" in Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir. Pakistan denied that the targets had anything to do with "terrorism" and that they were civilian facilities. The foreign ministries of China and Pakistan did not immediately respond to a request for comment on India's statement. Earlier on Thursday, when asked about the joint statement, a Chinese defence ministry spokesperson said the meeting had "achieved successful results", without elaborating. It was the first time that senior ministers from India and Pakistan had shared a stage since their clash in May.
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