He further said Pakistan will continue to implement those points which were agreed upon in Ufa (Russia) between the two Prime Ministers -Nawaz Sharif and Narendra Modi- such as release of fishermen and mechanism for facilitating religious tourism.
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However, Paksitan Foreign Office said no talks can be held if any preconditions are imposed by India.
Vikas Swarup, India’s foreign ministry spokesman, tweeted that: “Pakistan’s decision is unfortunate”. To a question, he said that the political leadership and people of Pakistan were committed to support Kashmiris and their right to self-determination.
“It has been pointed out repeatedly that it has been a long-standing practice that whenever Pakistani leaders visited India during the past 20 years, they have been meeting (separatist) leaders“, Pakistan’s statement said. Asked about possibility of any dialogue in future, Singh said, “go and ask Pakistan, how can I reply to it”.
The decision came as the two countries traded barbs over Pakistan’s plans to meet with Kashmiri separatist leaders while in India.
He said India wants talks on normalisation on its own terms by having discussion only on matters relating to trade and connectivity.
New Delhi wanted the two meetings to take place before the NSA-level talks but Islamabad proposed the interaction between senior military officials in September. India sought assurances that Pakistan would not discuss terrorism and would not meet with Kashmir separatists in New Delhi.
“India should realise after the current episode that their tactics are not working, and they need to be honest about dialogue with Pakistan”, added Aziz. “On the other hand, India only has propaganda against Pakistan”, he said. It was only NSA level talk. “To do so they are prepared to discuss all outstanding issues.’ As you can readily see the word K (Kashmir) is very much present in the sentence”.
But the countries failed at the last minute to agree the agenda for the meeting of their national security advisers (NSAs), due to start on Sunday, with Pakistan accusing India of imposing “preconditions”.
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Both countries have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir since independence from Britain in 1947, when the Asian subcontinent was divided into Islamic Pakistan and secular and Hindu-majority India.
