India stands out as a country that did what it could for Sri Lanka, External Affairs Minister Dr.S.Jaishankar told the CNN News18 channel. “Our Prime Minister was very clear that in many ways this is a very big test of a neighbourhood first policy,” he said, talking about the economic and political crisis unfolding in Sri Lanka which is grappling with a balance of payments crisis.
Dr.Jaishankar further remarked, “My understanding is that they (Sri Lanka) have to engage with the IMF.” He said that there will be policy recommendations that will be made and those are not easy recommendations for any country, recalling that India faced a similar crisis in the past. He also remarked, “Pakistan is grappling with something similar.
On Afghanistan, the Minister of External Affairs said, “There are very few places I’ve been to in the world where popular sentiment is so positive on India.” Speaking of leaders in Afghanistan before the nation fell to the Taliban, Dr. Jaishankar said, “They had a range of leaders who would quarrel with each other but on one issue they were united, which was India.
“Over the years we have done a huge range of development projects, we have really contributed to a lot of good things that happened in this period,” said the minister. “Other countries did a lot of good, but because they had both military and developmental responsibilities, often the goodwill of one was negated by the other. In our case, it is actually unmixed goodwill,” he added.
He also pointed out, “We are the country that brought a pediatric hospital to Kabul, we brought electricity to Kabul, we created clinics, we built their road that goes around. Dr. Jaishankar also said that after the Taliban takeover, Afghanistan is facing a medicine, food and COVID crisis.
“We’re grappling with this view that how do we actually find a way of helping Afghan society through what is obviously a very complicated and very difficult time,” he added.
The minister said that India’s concern is about how much more it can do in concrete ways to help the Afghan people. (NEWS 18)
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