Ukraine war wake-up call for Europe: EAM
External affairs minister S Jaishankar on Tuesday pushed back against European pressure for India to oppose Russia’s actions in Ukraine by highlighting the fallout of the chaotic withdrawal of Western powers from Afghanistan and their silence on challenges to the rules-based order in Asia, likely, a reference, among other events, to the Chinese aggression along the line of actual control (LAC) in Ladakh.
India’s position on the conflict in Ukraine emphasises the urgent cessation of fighting and a return to diplomacy and dialogue, and stresses the need to respect sovereignty and territorial integrity of states, Jaishankar said at an interactive session at the Raisina Dialogue, the foreign ministry’s flagship conference on geopolitics.
He was responding to questions from Norway’s foreign minister Anniken Huitfeldt, who said Russia’s aggression was an instance of an authoritarian state attacking a democracy and asked about India’s role in defending free societies, and Luxembourg foreign minister Jean Asselborn, who asked if Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov offered a justification for his country’s actions in Ukraine in the recent visit to New Delhi.
Jaishankar responded by indicating that European powers had not reacted to challenges to the rules-based order in Asia for almost a decade. He said the West should “remember what happened in Afghanistan less than a year ago, where an entire civil society was thrown under the bus...”
Jaishankar acknowledged that the Ukraine conflict is the dominant issue in terms of principles and values as well as practical consequences, such as higher energy prices, food inflation and various disruptions across Asia and Africa.
“Our position is that we all have to find some way of returning to
diplomacy and dialogue. And to do that, the fighting must stop.”
When former Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt questioned whether Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could inspire China to “do things that are otherwise not allowed”, Jaishankar replied: “We’ve been hearing for the last two months lot of arguments from Europe, saying there are things happening in Europe and Asia should worry about it because these could happen in Asia. “Guess what - things have been happening in Asia for the last 10 years. Now, Europe may not have looked at it, so this could be a wake-up call for Europe...to also look at Asia.”
In an obvious reference to India’s problems with China and Pakistan, Jaishankar said there are parts of Asia where boundaries have not been settled and terrorism is often sponsored by states. It is important for the rest of the world to recognise that the rulesbased order in Asia has been under stress for more than a decade, he added.