The Pakistan government cancelled the planned meeting of national security advisors with India on Sunday because New Delhi refused to discuss about a long term plan and meeting with Kashmiri leaders. The separatist conglomerate said, “The Kashmir dispute has always been the focal point of any discussion between the two countries and the Kashmir leadership since 1947”.
Advertisement
The latest incident came a few days after Pakistan called off the NSA talks with India during which the issue of terrorism was to be discussed as per the understanding reached in Ufa, Russia, between Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Nawaz Sharif.
“We are confident that the meeting between the border forces on September 5 and 6 will go ahead“, Pakistan National Security Adviser Sartaj Aziz said to a private news channel on Monday. “What we’ve said, particularly with the tension in Kashmir, is that our position has not changed, that this is an issue that India and Pakistan need to resolve”. The proposed NSA level meeting is now called off. Data available with the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) indicates that quite a few meetings (28), at various levels were held between India & Pakistan.
New Delhi has for years accused Pakistan of backing separatist Muslim rebels in India’s part of Kashmir.
Analysts say that by sacrificing India-Pakistan talks on the issue of the Hurriyat, the Modi regime is in fact helping the fringe group gain the sort of popularity it never enjoyed. PU Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Mujahid Kamran, senior columnist Altaf Hussain Qureshi, and senior analysts and journalists of Pakistan were present on the occasion.
India insists it is simply returning fire that Pakistan has started.
This broad policy bears the individual imprints of each of the Prime Ministers – P.V. Narasimha Rao, I.K. Gujral, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Dr. Manmohan Singh – but also reflects a degree of consistency.
Advertisement
“The government should give some attention to the Special Kashmir Committee and talk to the concerned people to make it active and functional”. He also hoped that Modi will visit Pakistan to attend SAARC summit, saying it was a multilateral which should be kept out of bilateral issues.
