Pakistan, India to hold dialogue on all issues, says Sartaj

Triggering a fresh controversy, Pakistan again raised the Kashmir issue by refusing to invite the Jammu and Kashmir assembly speaker to a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association conference it is hoisting on the ground that the state is disputed territory, leading to India threatening to skip the meet and demanding the venue be shifted to some other country. “It is sweet that the federal government has determined to boycott the assembly if the state speaker is not invite“, stated Abdullah.

The Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) at the 60th CPC, held in October 2014 in Cameroon, had elected National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq as president of CPA and decided to hold the next CPC in Islamabad from September 30 to October 8, 2015.

This exclusion of extending invitation to Jammu and Kashmir speaker is something exceptional. Hitting out at sensationalism of reports in the Indian press, he said that like India, Pakistan was also affected by terrorism.

“Pakistan is preparing its agenda for the meeting and consultations for that are under way”.

Indian High Commissioner TCA Raghavan said Pakistan had violated protocol by not inviting the speaker of Jammu and Kashmir, the Dawn reported.

India’s Parliament and Assemblies are treated as “India region” and all the Assemblies are the members of the CPA.

The official said the move by Islamabad angered New Delhi and it has communicated to all States to withhold sending nominations for the conference.

The occasion was a meeting of the Speakers of the Assemblies and chairpersons of the Legislative Councils called for by the Speaker of Lok Sabha Sumitra Mahajan.

He recalled the recent meeting of the Prime Ministers of Pakistan and India on the sidelines of the SCO Summit in Ufa in which both leaders agreed that India and Pakistan had a collective responsibility to ensure peace and promote development.

Sartaj Aziz expressed the desire to resolve all issues with India through dialogue.

In a hint that Pakistan might even walk the talk was evident from Aziz’s remarks that India’s blame game would be a topic for the NSA talks.

Gupta added that “Pakistan is a terrorist state and many countries do not want to go there” to attend the Conference.

The resolution underlined that Jammu and Kashmir “fulfils all conditions” of CPA membership.