At a virtual meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member states’ national security advisors (NSAs), Indian NSA Ajit Doval walked out after his Pakistani counterpart displayed the country’s “new” map depicting Indian territory as its own. Anurag Srivastava, the spokesperson for India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), said that the Pakistani NSA “deliberately projected a fictitious map that Pakistan has recently been propagating”, further adding that Pakistan proceeded to, expectedly, “present a misleading view of this meeting.”
According to officials in Islamabad, the SCO member states had rejected Doval’s objections during the meeting and had agreed with the position taken by Pakistani NSA Moeed Yusuf, continuing the discussion with the controversial map in the background. The country’s ruling party, Tehreek-e-Insaaf, officially tweeted that India had faced “defeat” at the meeting, with its objections and “spurious claims” being overruled by the members present.
The Indian side has considered the SCO’s projection of the map as a “blatant disregard to the advisory by the host”, Moscow, and claims that it is a clear violation of the meeting’s norms. After consulting with Russian representatives, Doval left the meeting in protest.
After the meeting, Yusuf took to Twitter to express his displeasure over Doval’s actions, saying, “Bizzarely, my Indian counterpart chose to walk out of Pakistan and Russia’s speech. Left a bad taste at a forum whose whole spirit is cooperation.” Further, he added that India’s “illegal” actions in the disputed territory of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) pose a threat to regional peace.
Last month, Islamabad had unveiled a new political map that depicts the entirety of Kashmir and portions of Gujarat as its own territories. In its statement, the MEA said that the release of the “so-called political map” is an “exercise in political absurdity” as it lays claims to the Union Territories of J&K and Ladakh as well as the State of Gujarat, which has no international credibility or legal validity. The new map marked the Himalayas as “Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir,” a major shift from its former status as “disputed territory”.
Tensions between the two neighbours regarding Kashmir have heightened since India unilaterally decided to revoke Article 370 last year, which had granted special status to the people of J&K, stripping the state of its autonomy and turning it into two union territories. The Indian government has ridiculed Pakistan’s efforts at internationalizing the issue at the United Nations and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). It was also revealed that Riyadh had snubbed Islamabad following its insistence to continually bring up Kashmir at the OIC.
Sources from the Russian government have said that their NSA Nikolai Patrushev “does not support” Pakistan’s move, and hope that the provocation does not affect India’s decision to participate in the SCO or the warm relationship that Patrushev shares with Doval.