Pakistan scuttles meeting with India

Pakistan’s national security adviser insisted yesterday that he was ready to travel to New Delhi for talks with his Indian counterpart despite a row between the arch-rivals over his planned meeting with Kashmiri separatist leaders.

However, Pakistan Foreign Office said no talks can be held if any preconditions are imposed by India.

His comments came a day after Pakistan called off the NSA talks refusing to give up itsposition on meeting Hurriyat leaders and including Kashmir on the agenda in thetalks that were to be held only on the issue of terror as per the Ufa statement.

“We were encouraged by the constructive interaction between the leaders of India and Pakistan earlier this year at Ufa, particularly the announcement of dialogue between the countries’ national security advisers”.

Pakistan’s Information Minister Pervaiz Rashid has said that India made a clear U-turn on its previous position while there was no change in Pakistan’s stance.

He said Indian forces were violating the Line of Control and working boundary just to keep busy Pakistani armed forces.

“A Pakistan government source pointed out how External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had on Saturday compared the relationship to a road “full of potholes” and said that although the journey was never smooth, both sides would have to talk to each other sooner or later. To do so they are prepared to discuss all outstanding issues.’ As you can readily see the word K (Kashmir) is very much present in the sentence”.

Also in the agenda is a high-level meeting between the Directors General of Military Operations (DGMOs) of the two nuclear-armed countries.

The leaders agreed then that their top security officials would meet to “discuss all issues connected to terrorism“, in a resumption of talks between their officials.

India and Pakistan have been long time neighbors who have been fighting with each other on trivial issues and Mufti expected that the peace talk would be useful.

Patra further described Pakistan’s decision to call off the talks as extremely unfortunate. The region has been the trigger for three of the four wars between the two countries since 1947.

“We also have evidence of Indian agency RAW’s involvement in fuelling terrorism in Pakistan”, added Aziz. The criticism spread, and Sharif and his government on the backfoot were compelled to raise the issue of Kashmir even though they had failed to ensure its mention in the Ufa joint statement that was the basis of this NSA meeting.