Pakistan adviser meeting Kashmir separatists not OK

Pakistan’s Sartaz Aziz is scheduled to arrive in New Delhi to meet India’s national security adviser Ajit Doval on Sunday, just as both countries have upped their rhetoric over the disputed region of Kashmir.

With the fate of NSA-level talks hanging in the balance on issue of Aziz’s planned meeting with Kashmiri separatists, several opinion makers and a survey by Dawn.com suggested that opportunity of meeting of NSAs should not be availed at any cost.

“Such a meeting would not be in keeping with the spirit and intent of the Ufa understanding to jointly work to combat terrorism”, he said.

In yet another tweet, he accused People’s Democratic Party president and MP Mehbooba Mufti of positioning herself to take credit for the release of separatist leaders after they were placed under arrest or detained by the police in Srinagar on Thursday.

“Sartaj Aziz will meet the Hurriyat conference leaders in New Delhi as consultations with them are a routine matter”, Foreign Office spokesman Qazi Khalilullah said in his weekly briefing on Thursday. Government sources say that PM Modi has not renounced his earlier stand of refusing talks till terror attacks against India end. “But, unilateral imposition of new conditions and distortion of the agreed agenda can not be the basis for going forward”, he added.

Moderate separatist leaders have also been invited for a reception being hosted by the High Commission in New Delhi for the visiting Pakistani official on August 23. Even more significantly…the Pakistani High Commissioner invited Hurriyat representatives to consult with the visiting NSA.

External Affairs Ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup said that India definitely wanted the talks to happen and had conveyed to Pakistan its agenda three days back, response to which was still awaited, PTI reported.

“Pakistani leadership has always interacted with the Kashmir and Hurriyat leadership, during their visits to India“.

Responding to questions by newsmen after a function in Islamabad on Friday, he said the India demand that Sartaj Aziz should not meet Kashmiri leaders is an excuse to wriggle out of its commitment to hold talks with Pakistan.

Talking concerning the Hurriyat’s agenda for the assembly with the Pakistan NSA, Akbar stated: “We will ask for constitutional assure over addressing the Kashmir situation from Pakistan“.

Kashmir Separatist meeting with Pakistan NSA is becoming a bone of contention between two countries ahead of proposed NSA-level talks.

“The insistence on meeting Hurriyat as a precondition is also a complete departure from the Ufa understanding”.

Officials were tightlipped on the reason for the detention but there was speculation that it could have been done to give a message to Pakistan that its engagement with separatists leaders was not welcome, especially at a time when their National Security Advisors are to meet.

Meanwhile, Congress leader Manish Tewari on Friday criticised the government’s move on Pakistan, saying: “The government is making a fool of itself”. “If the two countries seriously start talks to solve the Kashmir dispute, it hardly matters if Hurriyat Conference is taken on board before or after the beginning of such a process”.