As allies go silent on India’s strikes
Islamabad says will defer Saarc meet after 5 of 8 countries pull out
NEW DELHI: India’s diplomatic encirclement of Pakistan appeared to bear fruit on Friday, with even Islamabad’s traditional allies refusing to take its side over New Delhi’s surgical strikes on militant shelters across the Line of Control, their de-facto border.
While the United States, a long presence in Pakistan’s corner, hastened to underline the importance of its alliance with India, others who could previously have been relied upon to take Islamabad’s side, at least in rhetorical terms, chose to maintain a studiously neutral line.
In South Asia, Pakistan’s isolation deepened as Afghanistan openly backed Thursday’s surgical strikes as an act of “self-defence”, and Sri Lanka became the fifth country to pull out of the eightnation Saarc Summit in Islamabad, citing concerns about terrorism – an unsubtle reference to Pakistan. But perhaps China’s markedly restrained reaction comes most fraught for its “all-weather ally”. Neither did any voice of support ring out of the Organisation of Islamic Countries that has traditionally backed Islamabad’s stand on Kashmir. Russia, despite currently conducting military exercises with Islamabad, joined South Korea to speak out against terrorism and call on Pakistan to do more to fight the menace on its soil. And in what reflected growing global impatience with Pakistan’s self-defeating stand on fighting terrorism, Washington chose the moment to focus on the dangers of such policies in South Asia.