Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Saturday greeted India on its 69th Independence Day and called for “good neighbourly relations” between the two countries. While India sees the meeting as an opportunity for it to prove its long-held view that militants get support from over its western border, Pakistan wants the dialogue to be broader and form the basis for deeper engagement.
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi also conveyed his best wishes and greetings to the people of Pakistan and Prime Minister Nawaj Sharif Yesterday for their Independence.
Pakistan opened its foreign office on its Independence Day today to summon India’s deputy high commissioner and protest New Delhi’s failure to challenge the bail awarded to a key accused in the 2007 Samjhauta blasts, highlighting the tensions brewing ahead of a key meet next week.
In his statement to a daily, military spokesman Colonel Manish Mehta said that Pakistan Army retorted to unprovoked firing at Indian positions in Poonch district at 7:30 am.
“Aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir could neither be ignored nor put on the back-burner”.
“The only struggle in J-K is against Pakistani-sponsored terrorism“.
On Friday, Indian police and paramilitary soldiers maintained the curfew in Srinagar, the region’s main city, and several other parts of Kashmir to prevent any activities by separatists to mark Pakistan’s Independence Day.
The Gurdaspur attack on July 27, which left four policemen and three civilians dead, and the attack on a BSF convoy in Udhampur on August 5, in which two jawans were killed and Pakistani terrorist Mohammad Naveed alias Usman was captured alive, had cast a shadow over the dialogue process but New Delhi stuck to its offer of talks.
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During his brief speech after hoisting the country’s national flag at the Chancery amid a sudden spell of showers, Basit also dwelt on the challenges faced by Pakistan on the economic front and its “fight” against terrorism, saying that the country’s economy was showing “encouraging” signs of recovery.
