India Needs to Understand China’s Reasons For Blocking Ban on Masood Azhar, Says Rajnath Singh
Singh also said that India was not ‘disappointed’ with the ‘technical hold’ placed on the proposal to designate the JeM chief as a global terrorist, and the government would keep trying to convince China.
Home Minister Rajnath Singh, in an exclusive conversation with News18, has expressed hope of China coming around from its present position of defending Jaish chief Masood Azhar and frustrating India’s repeated attempts to designate him a ‘global terrorist’. He said that India needed to “understand” China’s position as well.
This is the first time such a senior cabinet minister has expressed his views on the subject.
Singh also said that India was not “disappointed” with the ‘technical hold’ that China has placed, as a member of UN Security Council, for the fourth time in last 10 years, thwarting India’s diplomatic efforts each time.
“India never gets disappointed. Now, they [China] must have some reason for this. We will need to understand what their reasons are for doing this,” Rajnath Singh said in an exclusive interview.
He added that India will “keep trying to convince China.” This is why, he added, the arguments about India reacting aggressively to the Chinese ‘technical hold’ did not hold any merit.
On the larger issue of India’s diplomatic assault against Pakistan, Rajnath Singh said that to only focus on the ‘technical hold’ placed by China meant not to give due credit to the Indian diplomats.
“Throughout the world people are seeing that the Security Council’s members are in agreement with the blacklisting of Masood Azhar. This is also a result of our sustained efforts. On the subject of Masood Azhar, the fact that we haven’t been getting cooperation…But we have faith that if we don’t get it today we will get it tomorrow,” Singh
The fact that external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj was invited to address the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation as guest of honour is no mean feat, Singh said.
In its reaction to the ‘technical hold’ placed by the Chinese, the external affairs ministry through a statement released on Wednesday did express its “disappointment” on the issue.
Without naming China, the foreign ministry in its statement said that it “was disappointed by the outcome”, adding it would continue to pursue all avenues to make sure “terrorist leaders who are involved in heinous attacks on our citizens are brought to justice”.
