S Jaishankar Calls Pak's Bilawal Bhutto "Spokesperson For Terror Industry"

Foreign Minister S Jaishankar has called his Pakistani counterpart Bilawal Bhutto Zardari the "promoter, justifier and spokesperson of a terrorism industry".

"Victims of terrorism do not sit together with its perpetrators to discuss terrorism," Mr Jaishankar said after a meeting of foreign ministers of the member nations of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Goa.

"Bhutto Zardari came as Foreign Minister of a SCO member state; that's part of multilateral diplomacy and we don't see anything more than that," Mr Jaishankar said.

The two foreign ministers did not hold a bilateral at the SCO meeting.

"On terrorism, Pakistan's credibility is depleting even faster than its forex reserves," Mr Jaishankar said in a clear swipe at Pakistan's struggle with a huge financial crisis that has forced the country to knock from door to door for loans.

Mr Jaishankar's comments come on a day when five Indian Army soldiers were killed in action during an operation to find terrorists hiding in a forest near Jammu and Kashmir's Poonch. The terrorists, suspected to be Pakistanis, had ambushed an army truck last week, killing five other soldiers.

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