NSA Ajit Doval walks out of SCO meeting over Pakistan’s map showing Indian territories as its part

National Security Advisor of the government, Ajit Doval on Tuesday walked out in protest from Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) virtual meeting where Islamabad projected a fictitious map showing Indian territories as part of Pakistan.

Hitting out at Pakistan, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said that at the meeting of the National Security Advisers (NSAs) of member states of the SCO hosted by Russia, the chair of the SCO, the Pakistani NSA deliberately projected a fictitious map that Pakistan has recently been propagating.

Official sources told IANS that India issued its strong objection to the use of this illegal map by Pakistan. Russia as the chair, sources added, tried very hard to persuade Pakistan not to do so.

Srivastava said Pakistan's action 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 NSA left the meeting in protest at that juncture.

"As was to be expected, Pakistan then went on to present a misleading view of this meeting," Srivastava said.

Sources said Pakistan's use of a fictitious map as a backdrop for its representative depicting sovereign Indian territories as part of Pakistan is a blatant violation of the SCO Charter and against all its established norms of safeguarding the sovereignty and territorial integrity of SCO member states.

Russia, sources said, conveyed to Doval that it does not support what Pakistan has done and hopes that Islamabad's provocative act will not affect India's participation in SCO.

Nikolai Patrushev, the Secretary of the National Security Council of Russian Federation also conveyed to India that he was personally very grateful to Doval for attending the SCO Summit.

He hoped to see the NSA at forthcoming events and definitely not let the episode "cast any shadow on Patrushev's warm personal relationship with the NSA for whom he has the highest regard."