“Politics Is Politics, Can’t Guarantee Every Country Will Support Us”: S. Jaishankar On India-Maldives Row

Government Has Worked To Build Solid Global Connections

Amid the ongoing tension between India and Maldives, the External Affairs Minister, S. Jaishankar has broken his silence with his comment ‘Politics is politics. Can’t guarantee every nation will support us.’ He stressed upon ongoing efforts of the government to build a strong connect with all nations, including neighbours.

For the past 10 years, he said, the government has been focusing on building strong connections and these global connections have been built with a considerable amount of success. The enduring effect of this was that irrespective of the fact whether politics went up or down, the people of that country, and its society generally had good feelings about India and understand the importance of having good relations with India, he said. This was the overarching aim of the efforts of maintaining strong global connections with all nations, said Jaishankar.

He as speaking at a conference in Nagpur. The comments came just a day ahead of the Maldivian President Mohammed Muizzu setting a deadline of March 15 to India for withdrawal of all its troops from the island nation. Currently, there are around 75 Indian defence personnel posted in Maldives. The Indian government did not immediately confirm the development of passed any comment on it.

Tensions between India and Maldives escalated recently when three junior ministers of the Maldivian government made disparaging comments on their social media platforms about the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The External Affairs Ministry last week called the High Commissioner of Maldives to India, Ibrahim Shaheeb, and conveyed its strong concerns over the ministers’ remarks.

The Maldivian government has distanced itself from the remarks commenting that they were made in a personal capacity, and suspended the concerned ministers.

External Affairs Minister Lists Developmental Work Undertaken In Various Countries

At the conference, Jaishankar further listed the development works undertaken in various sectors in other countries. “Today, we are involved in building roads, transmission, electricity, providing trade access, supplying fuel, making investments, and having people holiday in other countries,” he said, adding, “all these are parts of how you develop those relationships.”

“Sometimes, things do not go in a good way, and then you have to reason with people to bring things back to where they should be,” said the External Affairs Minister.