India cannot be a good neighbour to a country that supports terror: External affairs minister S Jaishankar

CHENNAI: In a strong message to Pakistan, India’s external affairs minister S Jaishankar on Friday said India cannot be expected to be a good neighbour to a country that supports terror.

Answering questions from students after launching IIT-M Global Research Foundation, Jaishankar said, “You can also have bad neighbours. Unfortunately, we do. If you look to the one to the west, If a country decides that they will deliberately, persistently, and unrepentantly continue with terrorism, we have a right to defend our people against terrorism. We will exercise that right." He further said: "How we exercise that right is up to us. Nobody can tell us what we should or should not do. We will do whatever we have to do to defend ourselves."




Referring to cancelling the Indus Water Treaty, the external affairs minister said, “Many years ago, we agreed to a water-sharing arrangement. It was a gesture of good neighbourliness. If you have decades of terrorism, there is no good neighbourliness and you don’t get the benefit of good neighbourliness. You can’t say, ‘Please share water with me, but I will continue terrorism.’ That’s wrong.”

While answering a question about relations with the neighbouring countries and on his recent visit to Bangladesh, he highlighted how India stepped in with Covid vaccines and helped Sri Lanka with a four million dollar relief package when it faced a financial crisis, and supplied relief materials when it faced the recent cyclone Ditwah.

“If India grows, all of our neighbours can grow with us. They will have many more opportunities. That’s the message which I took to Bangladesh,” Jaishankar said.

Answering another question from a student from Arunachal Pradesh on a woman with an Indian passport from the state being harassed by China at an airport, he said, “Arunachal Pradesh is and will remain a part of India, and the action is a violation of international treaties.”