Sushma Swaraj to meet chinese counterpart amid Masood Azhar row

TIL Desk/National/New Delhi/ External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi would meet on the sidelines of next week’s Russia-India-China Foreign Ministers’ conference in China amid Beijing’s continued blocking of India and other countries’ moves to list Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar as a global terrorist by the UN.

The meeting assumes significance as it will be the first high-level interaction between the two countries after the Pulwama terror attack carried out by the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) in which 40 CRPF soldiers were killed on February 14.

China, while expressing shock over the incident, reiterated its stand to block moves to list Azhar as a global terrorist by the UN’s 1267 Sanctions Committee. The 16th meeting of the Russia-India-China (RIC) Foreign Ministers would be held at the Chinese city of Wuzhen in the eastern Zhejiang province on February 27, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang announced on Wednesday.