India Cancels Modi’s Turkey Visit After Erdogan’s Comments On Kashmir

PM Modi was scheduled to go on a a two-day official visit to Ankara at the end of this month which would have been his first stand-alone visit to Turkey.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (R) shakes hands with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during an exchange of agreements in New Delhi on May 1, 2017. - (Photo by PRAKASH SINGH / AFP)

New Delhi: Dealing a major snub to Turkey for openly raising Kashmir issue and supporting Pakistan on international forum, India decided to call off Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s scheduled visit to Ankara. India gave a cold shoulder to Turkey as its President Recep Tayyip Erdogan openly raised Kashmir, which is a matter internal to India at the recent United Nations General Assembly. Turkey had also backed Pakistan at the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) meet in Paris. PM Modi was scheduled to go on a a two-day official visit to Ankara at the end of this month which would have been his first stand-alone visit to Turkey. He was to have proceeded to Turkey from Saudi Arabia, where he is going on October 27-28 to attend a mega investment summit. The decision to cancel the visit to Turkey marks a low in relations between New Delhi and Ankara, which have never been very warm. Trade and defence cooperation were among the issues that were to be on the table during Modi's Ankara visit, which had been agreed to in principle. The Ministry of External Affairs was non-committal over the development. "The visit was never finalised so there is no question of cancellation," news agency IANS cited an MEA source as saying. Modi had last visited Turkey during the G20 in Antalya in 2015. He had held a bilateral with Erdogan in Osaka, on the sidelines of the G20 in June this year. The Turkish leader had paid a two-day visit to India in July 2018. However, Erdogan's strong backing of Pakistan's position on Kashmir and alleging widespread human rights violations by India during his speech at the UN General Assembly last month has not gone down well with India. In his speech, Erdogan had raised the issue of UN resolutions on Kashmir and alleged that "eight million people are stuck" in Kashmir due to revocation of special status. He had criticised the international community for failing to pay attention to the Kashmir issue. India had slammed the statement, with the MEA spokesperson Raveesh Kumar asking Turkey "to get a proper understanding of the situation on the ground" before making statements on the Kashmir issue which is "completely internal to India". Also, India is known to have cancelled an order for two naval ships it had inked with Turkey, in retaliation of Erdogan's Kashmir comments.