Pakistan’s failed attempts to use Indonesia against India

Qureshi brought the Kashmir topic while discussing some bilateral agreements with Marsudi, and tried to persuade her to raise the abrogation issue at the UNSC

@Kunal_Chonkar

New Delhi: Pakistan has once again shot itself in the foot while attempting to target India from the shoulder of a foreign nation. Efforts to corner India over the Kashmir issue at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), has exposed Islamabad’s notorious practice of weaponizing its foreign relations with Asian nations.

In the latest incident, Pakistan tried to leverage its ties with Indonesia, persuading Jakarta to raise the issue of Jammu-Kashmir in the UNSC against India. Pakistan started cozying up to Indonesia after Jakarta took over as President of the UNSC for the month of August. The development was confirmed by Indonesia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Retno Marsurdi herself.

Marsudi said that on August 5 – the anniversary of the abrogation of Article 370 – she received a call from her Pakistani counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi. According to her, Qureshi started the discussion by citing some areas to deepen the bilateral ties between both countries. Midway through the discussion, Qureshi brought up the topic of Jammu-Kashmir. He asked Marsudi to raise the issue of Jammu-Kashmir and India’s alleged crimes on the local population at the UNSC.

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Pakistan which was hoping to win Indonesia’s support on the Kashmir issue against India at the cost of some bilateral agreements was left disappointed as Marsudi diplomatically rejected to side with Islamabad.

In her reply to Qureshi, she said ‘I conveyed that Indonesia, as the President of the UNSC, noted the request from Pakistan for the Council to discuss the latest developments in Jammu-Kashmir. However, I asserted that Indonesia’s position would always be impartial in the discussion of Jammu and Kashmir. It is because India and Pakistan are Indonesia’s friends.’ Marsudi was quoted of her rejecting to take Pakistan’s side at her off-line presser on 7 August.

The Indonesian foreign affairs minister even recommended that both parties, Pakistan and India must pursue dialogue and negotiations to put an end to the conflict peacefully.

The incident with Indonesia is not the first account of Pakistan’s failed attempts to exploit its foreign relations with countries to turn them against India.

On 22 July, Prime Minister Imran Khan had a 20-minute-long telephonic conversation with his Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina. Immediately as the call ended, Islamabad issued a nine-paragraph-long press release claiming it discussed the Kashmir issue with Dhaka. Some Pakistani diplomats and foreign secretaries in their off-the-record statements to the press even claimed that Khan had won Hasina’s heart over the Kashmir issue and she had vowed to stand with him.

However, much to Islamabad’s dismay, the press release issued by Bangladesh on 23 July was not only short but also proved to be shocking.

The two-paragraph-short release read that Khan had held a conversation with Hasina, wherein he had invited her to Pakistan. However, neither was there any reference of her accepting the invite, nor was any alleged talk on Kashmir even commented by any of Dhaka’s foreign or press secretaries.