New Delhi, Dec 9: India has had an “exceptionally difficult” challenge along the northern borders in the last three years and the country responded to it very resolutely and has been maintaining the kind of military deployment necessary for national security, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Saturday on the lingering row in eastern Ladakh with China.
He said this in an address at the FICCI, while explaining how the Modi government makes choices after choices with confidence however difficult and tough they may be. “It could even be what happens at our border. Again you all know in the last three years, we have had an exceptionally difficult time in terms of the challenges on our northern borders,” Jaishankar said.
“Even though this happened in the middle of Covid, yet we responded very resolutely, very determinedly and to date we are still deployed in whatever manner is necessary for our national security,” he said.
The Indian and Chinese troops are locked in an over three-year confrontation in certain friction points in eastern Ladakh even as the two sides completed disengagement from several areas following extensive diplomatic and military talks.
Jaishankar also explained how India, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, tried to create global awareness against terrorism or went ahead for cooperation under the Quad framework though there was a narrative that it could make somebody uncomfortable, seen as an oblique reference to China.
“If somebody else is uncomfortable, that’s their problem,” he said.
“At the end of the day, we have to do what we have to do. however difficult and tough that is. It is about the confidence of being able to exercise choice after choice,” he said adding such an approach will “define us as Bharat”.
The external affairs minister also cited how India confronted the challenge of terrorism. “There is no society which is more traumatised in the modern era tha us when it comes to terrorism,” he said, noting the Modi government showed a sense of resolution to “shape” global agenda on it. Without specifically mentioning India continuing procurement of crude oil from Russia, Jaishankar asserted that its choices on energy purchases were driven by national interests.
“When it came to our energy purchases, our national choices and national interests were supposed to be subservient to the political correctness of other countries who by the way had made their own arrangements to soften the blow for themselves,” he said. (PTI)
