The National Security Advisors of India and Pakistan met in Bangkok on Sunday, officials said.
Advertisement
“They were guided by the vision of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a peaceful, stable and prosperous South Asia”, it added. However, External Affairs Minister’s visit to Pakistan is not a small issue, especially in conditions where there is tension between the two countries.
But today, India and Pakistan did not even refer to the Ufa meeting or the agreement reached there as New Delhi shifted its position on talks.
“It is a good beginning”, Shahid-ul-Islam, the political advisor to moderate Hurriyat chairman, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, said, “Somewhere, the two countries have to sit and talk”.
But within days of the Ufa agreement, Pakistan insisted on including the Kashmir dispute in the dialogue agenda, after the Pakistan delegation returned home to criticism for leaving out the Kashmir dispute from the Ufa joint statement. The first between the foreign secretaries and the second one being just after Ufa between the NSAs, that got cancelled out.
“India and Pakistan should provide greater autonomy to Kashmir under their control and make borders irrelevant by allowing free travel and trade across it. Both the countries have atomic bombs”.
India’s engagement with Pakistan comes at a time when Indian newspapers have reported warnings by intelligence agencies of suicide attacks by the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorist group-blamed for the 2008 terrorist attack on Mumbai.
“If the response is serious and credible, India is prepared to address all outstanding issues through a bilateral dialogue”, she said.
The government has, however, neither spelt out the specifics nor the framework for engagement with Pakistan or taken Parliament or political parties into confidence, Mr Surjewala added. “It’s a betrayal of everything that this government has ostensibly, publicly espoused”, he claimed and said if the talks were so necessary, the government should have explained the rationale behind re-engaging with Pakistsan.
Advertisement
India also wants Pakistan to bring to justice Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, the alleged mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks that killed 168 people. “Clearly Paris was more than the officially termed courtesy meeting”, he said.
