India refuses to sign SCO statement over Pahalgam

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) defence ministers' meeting couldn't issue a joint communique on Thursday after India refused to endorse the document because it didn't address its terrorism-related concerns, officials aware of the matter said.

- Rahul Singh and Rezaul H Laskar

Defence minister Rajnath Singh, who attended the meeting at Qingdao in China, refused to sign the joint communique as it was silent on the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack in which 26 people were killed but mentioned Balochistan and the hijacking of the Jaffer Express by Baloch militants in March, the officials said, asking not to be named.

Pakistan's insistence on not having any reference to the Pahalgam attack, while retaining the reference to the situation in Balochistan, stymied the finalisation of a joint statement, the officials said. The SCO works by consensus and a joint communique cannot be issued if even one member state doesn't endorse it.

China, the current president of the SCO, has deep military and strategic ties with Pakistan, which it strongly supported during the recent four-day clashes with India under Operation Sindoor. The operation was India's direct military response to the Pahalgam terror strike, the worst attack on civilians since the 26/11 Mumbai attacks.

External affairs ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal responded to a question about the SCO meeting's failure to issue a joint communique by tacitly pointing to Pakistan's role in the matter.