India walks out of SCO’s NSA meet after Pakistan projects ‘fictitious’ map

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India on Tuesday walked out of a virtual meeting of the National Security Advisors of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) after Pakistan presented a “fictitious” map of the country at the meet. The Indian side left the meeting mid-way to protest against the move of Islamabad.

The Indian side, however, walked out of the NSA meet only after holding consultation with the host, Russia.

The Ministry of External Affairs said what Pakistan did was in “blatant disregard to host Russia’s advisory”.

“At the meeting of National Security Advisers of member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization today, hosted by the Chair of the SCO (Russia), the Pakistani NSA deliberately projected a fictitious map that Pakistan has recently been propagating,” the MEA said in a statement.

“This was in blatant disregard to the advisory by the host against it and in violation of the norms of the meeting.  After consultation with the host, the Indian side left the meeting in protest at that juncture. Pakistan then went on to present a misleading view of this meeting,” the statement added.

Government sources were later quoted as saying by news agency ANI that Russia has termed Pakistan’s act as “provocative” while clarifying that Moscow does not support it.

Sources said Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of the National Security Council of the Russian Federation, has conveyed that Russia does not support what Pakistan has done.

Russia further “hopes Pakistan’s provocative act will not affect India’s participation in SCO and definitely not cast any shadow on Patrushev’s warm personal relationship with (the Indian) NSA. Secretary of National Security Council of Russian Federation hopes to see NSA at forthcoming events,” sources added.

The map over which India took objection presented inaccurately the borders of the two countries.

It may be recalled that Pakistan had released it new political map on August 4 which presented Indian union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh and parts of Gujarat as its own territories. The map was released on the eve of the first anniversary of scrapping of Article 370 that ranted special status to the erstwhile state of J&K.

India had then labelled Pakistan’s move as an “exercise in political absurdity” without any legal basis.