India on 7 August 2015 decided to boycott the 61st Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference which is slated to be held in Islamabad, Pakistan from 30 September to 8 October 2015.
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India is set to strongly take up with Pakistan the Gurdaspur and Udhampur terror strikes at the National Security Advisor-level talks later this month even as Islamabad has yet to respond to the dates proposed by New Delhi, but looks likely to accept.
India has long accused Pakistan of pushing Muslim militants into the Indian administered part of Kashmir to promote unrest in the Muslim-majority region, which both countries claim.
“We (31 Speakers) reviewed this issue and felt this was wrong”.
“We should tell Pakistan to mend its ways or whatever will happen later, you (Pak) exclusively would be responsible”, he said. “I would like to thank the speaker of the lower house and the legislative assembly members for taking a strong decision“, said Gupta.
He emphasised that Pakistan was pursuing a policy of good relations with all the neighbouring countries, Foreign Office (FO) said in a statement.
Indian forces have a heavy military presence in the area which has seen decades of fighting and thousands killed in unrest.
Pakistan wants a result-oriented dialogue with India on all issues including Jammu and Kashmir, a top Pakistani official said on Friday.
The APHC in a statement issued after a meeting chaired by its Chairman, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, in Srinagar said that India and Pakistan needed to show political farsightedness to deal with the tense situation.
Talking to mediapersons after meeting, Sumitra Mahajan said that those who could attend the meeting, had sent their letter expressing their views in consonance to the views of others who attended Speaker’s meeting that if J&K Speaker is not extended an invitation, India would boycott the conference.
External affairs minister Vikas Swaroop also reacted to pakistan’s decision to exclude Jammu and Kashmir speaker from the meet, saying that Pakistan’s decision is a clear violation of the organisation’s constitution.
“We are still awaiting a response from Islamabad to our proposal to hold the talks between the two NSAs on August 23-24 here”, official sources said.
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Repeating Pakistan’s resolve to fight terrorism, he claimed that the country’s valiant forces are successfully demolishing the terrorist infrastructure across Pakistan.
