South Asia abstains

On Wednesday, 141 of 193 nations of the world condemned Russia for attacking Ukraine and demanded cessation of hostilities. South Asian countries including Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka abstained from voting.

Pakistan and India faced immense pressure from the European Union and the United States to “do the right thing”, but the nature of pressure was different. Similarly, the nature of relations between these countries and Russia is also different. Pakistan is just warming up to Russia, but it was facing extreme diplomatic pressure. India is a long-time Russian partner, but it faced mild pressure as well.

To start with, India along with China and United Arab Emirates (UAE) had abstained from voting for a rare United Nations (UN) General Assembly Session on Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The UN Security Council held voting last week and obviously Russia was the only “no” vote against 11 “yes” votes. The next day, the rare General Assembly session, 11^th of its kind since 1950, started. It culminated on Wednesday with an overwhelming majority of the UN members adopting the resolution condemning Russia.

A day before culmination of the session, ambassadors and high commissioners of over 20 countries in Islamabad issued a joint press statement demanding Pakistan to condemn Russia. They include ambassadors of the European Union countries – Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, Poland, Romania, Spain, Sweden and The Netherlands – and head of the EU Delegation, ambassadors of Japan, Norway and Switzerland, High Commissioners of Canada and the UK, and Charge de Affairs of Australia. New Zealand was not amongst these countries which is a surprise as Australia is among the signatories of this statement. There is a pattern of these countries moving together.

Last year, ambassadors of some of these countries and the US had issued a statement against imprisonment of an opposition leader on multiple charges in Turkey. In the joint statement, these ambassadors said that the imprisonment is a violation of human rights. But President Recep Tayyip Erdogan saw it otherwise. He considered it as intervention into internal affairs of Turkey and ordered the Turkish Foreign Ministry to declare all of them as persona non-grata, found acting in violation of Vienna Convention. Nobody was expecting such a reaction. All the ambassadors then tendered an apology and assured that they will not interfere in internal affairs of Turkey.

Prime Minister Imran Khan and Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan are known to push limits. Of course, Khan has repeatedly pointed out that Pakistan has suffered a lot from Western policies in the region and his statements have caused ripples in national media. In his public addresses and statements, he minces no words expressing displeasure with U.S regional policies. He even said that the Afghan war was fought for dollars and after disintegration of Soviet Union, the U.S branded it terrorism. In addition, he has been constantly asking for the release of funds for the Taliban government in Kabul, but the U.S is not accepting his demand. Nonetheless, it did not deter Afghanistan from voting in favour of the resolution instead of abstaining with Pakistan.

Though nothing documented has come out in the shape of any agreement with Russia, Imran Khan has publicly talked about energy and the security infrastructure Pakistan could get from Russia. He also opted to be in Moscow when Russia launched the invasion of Ukraine. It is unlikely that Khan would condemn Russia on the request of EU ambassadors.

On the contrary, the ambassadors of Europe and the U.S in India did not make any such public statement despite the fact that India’s abstention at the UNSC voting clearly was a sign of support to Russia against Western countries. Only in a letter, to thank Poland for helping Indians leave war-hit Ukraine, did Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi talk of peace without mentioning Russia.

Another inexplicable fact is that the Indians thrive more than Pakistanis in Europe and the U.S and overseas Indians do not back Modi very enthusiastically. At the UNSC, India stands with China, but that does not stop it from monitoring South China Sea along with the U.S and European ships. In fact, India has a long history of reliance on Russian war material which was openly used against Pakistan.

In contrast, Pakistan has refrained from such actions and its overtures to Russia are fresh and fewer. Despite that, the American and European countries have developed Indo-Pacific policies, referring to India a lot and rarely mentioning Pakistan. Before Khan’s visit to Moscow, few western diplomats based in Pakistan were criticizing Russia on social media openly, seemingly being mindful of Khan’s tilt towards Russia. But now that they have issued a joint statement publicly which means that they felt they had exhausted all subtle diplomatic options before taking this extreme step.

The writer teaches mediatization at International Islamic University Islamabad