Editorial: Mediocre Bilawal

any bilateral engagement during his trip seems questionable given his naive statements on sensitive issues

Hyderabad: Apart from optics, Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari is about to visit Goa for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) foreign ministers meeting and there is nothing to look forward to. Given his recent naivety on sensitive issues such as Kashmir, it is absolutely impossible for him to have any bilateral contacts during his trip. This will be the first visit by a Pakistani foreign minister to India since Hina Rabbani Khar in 2011. India has extended invitations to all SCO member states, including Pakistan, to hold important ministerial meetings and summits this year. Bilawal is a entitled monarch who has recently shown his political naivety through wild outbursts against India and its elected leaders. In this way, he is taking his country’s already discredited diplomacy to a new low. In keeping with a long tradition of placing anti-Indian diatribes at the heart of his national identity, Bilawal recently launched a vulgar personal attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and finally exposed his pathetic ignorance of basic realities . He should bear in mind that Pakistan, being the epicentre of global terrorism nursing several deadly terror groups on its soil, is a thoroughly discredited country in the world and is least qualified to comment on elected prime ministers of other countries. The Pakistani minister of The visit came at a turbulent time when his country was facing multiple crises, economic, political and social.

The economic crisis has deepened to the point where the country defaulted on foreign loans. The government has cut subsidies and raised taxes in recent weeks to comply with the terms of an International Monetary Fund bailout and secure the release of part of a $1.2 billion deal that has been on hold since December. But the measures have led to increased food, gas and electricity prices and misery for the people, while leaders of major parties, including Bilawal’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), wash their dirty laundry in public. Add to this the fact that terrorists continue to operate with impunity in the country as Bilawal and his government colleagues have tragically failed to stop terrorism targeting India. On the eve of his visit, India rightly raised concerns about terrorism arising from infiltration across the Line of Control (LoC). New Delhi has made clear that it is difficult to engage a neighbor that uses cross-border terrorism as a tool of state policy. Pakistan must first fulfill its commitment not to encourage, sponsor and perpetrate cross-border terrorism. India has always hoped to establish normal good-neighborly relations with Pakistan in line with its “neighborhood priority policy”. The two countries must resolve outstanding issues in an atmosphere free from terror and violence.