‘Today’s India is changed’: Bilawal on getting no flood aid from India.
Foreign Minister (FM) Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, in an interview with France 24, said that Pakistan is grateful for the global assistance it has received however the country does not want aid, it wants justice.
He said, “Our message is that we don’t want to beg, we don’t want aid, we want justice. This is a global catastrophe as a result of global action and it requires a global situation.”
When asked if India had offered any help and whether Pakistan had asked for any, the minister termed Pakistan-India relations as “complicated”.
“We have a long and complicated history. unfortunately, India today is a changed India and is no longer the secular country promised by its founding fathers for all its citizens,” he said.
He, further added that the country “is increasingly becoming a Hindu-supremacist India at the expense of its Christian and Muslim minorities not only within India but unfortunately in the disputed region of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).”
He said Pakistan is seeing multiple challenges in the future such as health catastrophe, disease epidemics, crop shortage, livestock loss, food security, and more. However, he expressed hope saying, “Every crisis creates an opportunity and in this crisis, the opportunity is that we must build back in a more resilient way and greener way.”
On Afghanistan and its tough rules and regulations on women, Bilawal said Pakistan had still not officially recognized the Afghan government.
He said it would be in the Afghan government’s favor to fulfill its promises to the international community and its nation to gain legitimacy and a path to international recognition.
When asked about the recent protest happening in Iran over a young woman’s death allegedly because of the morality police, Bilawal said he had seen the Iranian foreign minister’s response on the issue and said he trusted the neighbor to “keep to their word” for an incident inquiry despite “living in extremely difficult circumstances”.
“Unilateral illegal actions of August 2019 where attempts to undermine the resolution of the United Nations… United Nations Security Council… and change the boundaries of this disputed territory and going a step further and attempting to change the Muslim majority in Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir into a minority in their own land,” the minister said.
The India today, is a changed India. It is no longer a secular India. It is increasingly becoming a Hindu supremacist India at the expense of its Christian and Muslim minorities – Pakistan FM @BBhuttoZardari in an interview with @FRANCE24 pic.twitter.com/j1K6MbWM13
— PPP (@MediaCellPPP) September 22, 2022
Bilawal added India’s “absolutely racist” and “Islamophobic” policy has caused reaction not only within Kashmir but all across India.
The PPP chairman added that the Muslim minority in India is feeling persecuted and insecure. He also said that this is an active policy of the state and this is how the government of India is treating their own Muslim citizens and that one can only imagine how they are treating the Muslims of Pakistan and IIOJK.
Bilawal added that he believes the younger generation on both sides wants to see the countries living in peace.
Pakistan floods
Talking about the unprecedented flooding in Pakistan, the foreign minister said we are still in the state of an active disaster and the “scale of climate catastrophe in Pakistan is truly apocalyptic”.
He added that the country is still in the rescue and relief phase of this tragedy.
“This monster monsoon that Pakistan experienced started in mid-June and ended at the end of August… Once the rains finally stopped it left a 100-kilometre lake in the middle of my country that could be seen from space,” he added.
'The scale of climate catastrophe in Pakistan is truly apocalyptic' – Foreign Minister @BBhuttoZardari interview with @FRANCE24 pic.twitter.com/35Ncrj2WoI
— PPP (@MediaCellPPP) September 22, 2022
The minister said that the “irony” was that despite producing minimum amount of carbon output, Pakistan was one of the 10 most climate-stressed countries.
Afghanistan and Iran
The foreign minister said that along with the rest of the international community, Pakistan has not officially recognized the government in Afghanistan.
He added that the interim government has made promises to the international community and to its people and fulfilling those promises would help them gain legitimacy and a path to international recognition.
Bilawal said primary and segregated tertiary education is being offered but “we are waiting for secondary education.”
He also commented on the UN report regarding the alleged human rights violations in Xinjiang against Muslim Uighurs and said that we have to be fair and unbiased in our approach and that we can’t pick and choose in such situations. He added that Pakistan’s approach to the report was impartial.
On the recent protests over the death of a woman in the custory of morality police in Iran, Bilawal said he “trusts” Iran’s foreign minister’s statements of inquiry into the unfortunate incident.
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