India to boycott Speakers’ meet in Pakistan unless J&K is invited

Reportedly, Pakistan has said the speaker was not invited, as IHK is a disputed territory.

The CPC is scheduled to be held from September 30 to October 9.

The MEA said Pakistan’s decision now goes “against the Commonwealth’s guiding principles of promotion of worldwide understanding, world peace and democratic governance”. “Either change the venue or India will not attend”, Mahajan said.

There were media reports on Friday evening that suggested that Dr Shirin Chaudhury, Speaker of Bangladesh Parliament and chairperson of the CPA Executive Committee – whom India had requested to intervene to resolve the matter – had asked Pakistan to reconsider.

Pakistan has over the past year been raising the Kashmir issue at global forum, and trying to push its agenda for a plebiscite in the state.The issue comes ahead of the August 23-24 National Security Advisor-level talks to be held in New Delhi, between India’s Ajit Doval and Pakistan’s Sartaj Aziz.

This controversy has come around the time of the twin terror attacks in Gurdaspur and Udhampur for which Pakistan has been blamed. “I would like to thank the speaker of the lower house and the legislative assembly members for taking a strong decision”, said Gupta. He also took up the cause of Rehbar-e-Taleem teachers and said the programme had been conceived when the schools in far off areas had virtually become defunct due to staff paucity.

While India sees the meeting as an opportunity for it to prove its long-held view that militants get support from over its western border, Pakistan wants the dialogue to be broader and form the basis for deeper engagement.

As many as 403 delegates from 53 countries have assured their participation in the conference.

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Majeed Memon on Saturday dubbed the non-invitation to Jammu and Kashmir Speaker for the Commonwealth Speakers’ conference in Islamabad as a mistake by Pakistan, adding that India has rightly boycotted the meeting. Find us on Facebook too!