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The South Asian Insider

'Europe's problems...': Experts cite Jaishankar, pan EU's hypocrisy on Pahalgam



As the EU's top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, urged India and Pakistan to exercise restraint, several experts went on an overdrive in slamming her for maintaining double standards.
The European Union has been called out by experts and on social media for its hypocrisy over its stand on the tensions between India and Pakistan as compared to how it reacted to the Ukraine-Russia war.
As the EU's top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, urged both nations to exercise restraint, several experts went on an overdrive in slamming her for adopting an equidistant approach and recalling External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar's 2022 remark on "Europe's problems".On Friday, Kallas held separate calls with Jaishankar and Pakistan's Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar amid escalating tensions between the two countries in the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack, which left 26 dead.
In a post on X, Kallas said the escalation of the situation helps "no one" without even remotely calling out Pakistan over its support for cross-border terrorism - of which India has been a victim for decades.
"I urge both sides to show restraint and pursue dialogue to ease the situation. Escalation helps no one," Kallas, who is the EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs, said on X.However, foreign policy experts and a section of social media users were quick to point out Kallas's double standards and dug out her old posts on Russia's invasion of Ukraine, where she said that "defence is not provocation" and it was important to "stop the aggressor"."I hope Europe learnt that appeasement only strengthens the aggressor. The aggressor will never stop unless he is stopped," Kallas had posted while calling for action against Russia.
In another post, Kallas defended Europe's military backing of Ukraine, saying "defence is not provocation".
"Fear of escalation creates self-deterrence. As a result, some argue that helping Ukraine defend itself from aggression means to escalate. Defence is not provocation," she had said.EXPERTS SLAM EUROPEAN UNION
Summing up the situation, a foreign policy lecturer tweeted, "To be clear, most Indians have rarely expected Europe to do much about Pakistan, considering its historical record."The EU is Pakistan's second most important trading partner and have maintained close ties over the years.Another foreign policy expert called Kallas's statement "purposeless" and "ineffectual". "Feels like a return of the hyphenated India-Pakistan era with this statement from Brussels," he said.A senior ORF fellow said the statement showed the EU's ignorance of the situation in the region as "dialogue and diplomacy" have done little to curb cross-border terror from Pakistan."If you had any knowledge, you would know dialogue and diplomacy has been done to death (the death of Indians at the hands of Islamist Pakistani terrorists) and you have blithely turned a blind eye to the shenanigans of the Islamic State of Pakistan. Please do tell us what dialogue and diplomacy has achieved so far?" Sushant Sareen tweeted.