Lobbing the ball for dialogue back into Pakistan’s court, India said that Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar was “willing” to travel to Islamabad to discuss “cross-border terror in Kashmir”, but not to discuss Kashmir itself, as Pakistan had proposed. In a letter handed over to Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhury by High Commissioner Gautam Bhambawale on Wednesday, the government said that any talks would have to focus on terror.
“Since aspects related to cross-border terrorism are central to the current situation in J&K, we have proposed that discussions between the Foreign Secretaries be focussed on them,” government sources said about their response to Pakistan’s invitation for talks on the situation in Jammu and Kashmir.
“We have also conveyed that GoI rejects in their entirety the self-serving allegations regarding the situation in J&K, which is an integral part of India where Pakistan has no locus standi,” the sources added.
Centrality of terrorism
Underlining India’s position in an address to journalists, the Foreign Secretary also referred to the “centrality of the issue of terrorism” when discussing India’s difficulties in dealing with Pakistan within South Asia.
“Looking at the neighbourhood, we clearly face a unique challenge in respect to one country which is Pakistan,” Mr. Jaishankar told members of the foreign correspondents club in Delhi.
He said that despite External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s visit to Islamabad last year and a “great” effort to reach out to Pakistan in the last two years by the Modi government, India has faced several terror attacks including on the Pathankot airbase, which has made “the relationship difficult to grow.”
Officials told The Hindu that India doesn’t expect Pakistan to respond favourably to the government’s suggestion of discussing terrorism, not the Kashmir dispute at the Foreign Secretary-level. They also denied that the response had any bearing on the two tracks of dialogue currently in play: the terror-specific mechanism between National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and Pakistan NSA Nasir Janjua, as well as the “Comprehensive dialogue” between the Foreign Secretaries agreed to last year.
Response to invite
“This is only a response to Pakistan’s recent invitation for talks on Kashmir. The question is whether Pakistan sees the necessity to discuss cross-border terrorism or not,” a senior official said.
Pakistan had offered the Foreign Secretary-level talks with India on August 15, 2016, hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi indicated a major shift in India’s policy.’
[Source: The Hindu]
