New Delhi : External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar has said that it’s difficult to engage with Pakistan due to its encouragement of cross-border terrorism.

“The bottomline is that it is very difficult to engage with a neighbour that practises cross-border terrorism against India,” said Jaishankar during a joint press briefing with Panama’s Foreign Minister Janaina Tewaney Mencomo in Panama City on Tuesday.

Next week, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto will be attending the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO)’s foreign ministers meeting in Goa (May 4-5).

India is chairing the SCO this year and has sent invites to all members to attend various meetings. “We have always said that they (Pakistan) have to deliver on their commitment not to encourage, sponsor, and carry out cross-border terrorism. We continue to hope that one day we would reach that stage,” said Jaishankar.

This is the first time India has commented on Pakistan since Bilawal Bhutto’s participation in the SCO foreign ministers meet was confirmed.

Bilawal will have a lot to deal with once he reaches India as he had made derogatory statements against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a press conference at the UN in December 2022, where he called PM Modi the ‘butcher of Gujarat’.

Meanwhile, Jaishankar, who is on a nine-day visit to Latin America, will head for Colombia on Wednesday where he will be meeting several top representatives of the government, business and civil society. His Colombia visit would be the first Foreign Ministerial level visit to the country. After that, he will visit the Dominican Republic.