NEW DELHI: External affairs minister S Jaishankar on Friday spoke to his counterpart from Russia, Sergey Lavrov, and discussed escalating India-Pakistan tensions amid following Pahalgam terror attack, which claimed 26 lives.
According to the Russian foreign ministry, the two ministers also discussed the schedule of upcoming contacts at the highest levels.
On April 22, gunmen attacked on innocent tourists who were there to enjoy the scenic beauty of “mini Switzerland.” The attack, the deadliest in the Valley since the 2019 Pulwama strike, targeted mostly tourists and was claimed by The Resistance Front (TRF), a proxy of the Pakistan-based terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). TRF later denied involvement in the attack.
Both the ministers discussed issues of Russian-Indian cooperation and the aggravation of Indian-Pakistani relations following the terrorist attack in Pahalgam.
“Sergey Lavrov called for settling disagreements between New Delhi and Islamabad on a bilateral basis by political and diplomatic means per the provisions of the Simla Agreement of 1972 and the Lahore Declaration of 1999,” the Russian federation said in a statement.
Following the terror attack in Pahalgam, the Central government announced several diplomatic measures, such as closing the Integrated Check Post (ICP) at Attari, suspending the SAARC Visa Exemption Scheme (SVES) for Pakistani nationals, giving them 40 hours to return to their country, and reducing the number of officers in the High Commissions on both sides.