‘Today’s India is changed’: Bilawal on getting no flood aid from India

Foreign Minister (FM) Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, in an interview with France 24, said that Pakistan is grateful for the global assistance it has received however the country does not want aid, it wants justice.

He said, “Our message is that we don’t want to beg, we don’t want aid, we want justice. This is a global catastrophe as a result of global action and it requires a global situation.”

When asked if India had offered any help and whether Pakistan had asked for any, the minister termed Pakistan-India relations as “complicated”.

“We have a long and complicated history. unfortunately, India today is a changed India and is no longer the secular country promised by its founding fathers for all its citizens,” he said.

He, further added that the country “is increasingly becoming a Hindu-supremacist India at the expense of its Christian and Muslim minorities not only within India but unfortunately in the disputed region of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).”

He said Pakistan is seeing multiple challenges in the future such as health catastrophe, disease epidemics, crop shortage, livestock loss, food security, and more. However, he expressed hope saying, “Every crisis creates an opportunity and in this crisis, the opportunity is that we must build back in a more resilient way and greener way.”

On Afghanistan and its tough rules and regulations on women, Bilawal said Pakistan had still not officially recognised the Afghan government.

He said it would be in the Afghan government’s favour to fulfil its promises to the international community and its nation to gain legitimacy and a path to international recognition.

When asked about the recent protest happening in Iran over a young woman’s death allegedly because of the morality police, Bilawal said he had seen the Iranian foreign minister’s response on the issue and said he trusted the neighbour to “keep to their word” for an incident inquiry despite “living in extremely difficult circumstances”.