Share

Hurriyat leader Shabbir Shah detained at Delhi airport

Speaking at a Lucknow event, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said, “We are firm on our stand that whatever talks, dialogue are held with Pakistan, that should only and only be on terrorism“.

Advertisement

India on Friday escaped from the route of negotiations table by cancelling National Security Adviser (NSA)-level talks with Pakistan after Islamabad turned down an Indian advice for declining a meeting of Hurriyat leaders, local media reported Friday.

India said this morning that it had advised Pakistan yesterday that it would not be appropriate for Mr Aziz to meet to meet Hurriyat representatives during his visit to New Delhi but Pakistan responded by making it clear that it could not accept such advice.

“In fact, it is India that has imposed new conditions that Pakistan can not meet Hurriyat leaders, assuming the right to determine the guest list of for the High Commissioner’s reception”, he said.

Even as he proposed a new date for the meeting with NSA Ajit Doval, Aziz asserted that he was still willing to go to New Delhi for the NSA-level talks.

India, the world’s largest democracy, had urged the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association to shift the conference venue to another country if Pakistan remained inflexible. “We willl also tell him that Pakistan should use its diplomatic channels to project the Kashmir issue more forcefully and effectively”.

“Cancellation of the talks is not confirmed from our side…we are ready to go for the talks as scheduled…”, he said.

Majority-Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan have fought three wars since becoming separate nations in 1947, two of them over the Himalayan region of Kashmir, which both claim in full but rule in part.

Pakistan had turned down earlier a request from India to cancel a dinner with Kashmiri separatist leaders ahead of bilateral security talks.

The Pakistan NSA said that if India would be presenting documentary evidence of alleged terrorism from Pakistani soil to Islamabad, Pakistan would also not be backing down and would be carrying at least three dossiers on the involvement of the Research and Analysis (the external intelligence agency of India) in Pakistan, most notably in Balochistan, and other evidence.

Indian officials say the Pakistani invite to Kashmiri separatists was designed to scuttle the NSA talks and follows a pattern of the Pakistani military-intelligence establishment.

In Islamabad, the Aziz-Doval talks were discussed on Friday at a high-level meeting on security, chaired by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and attended by Aziz and army chief General Raheel Sharif.

He further added, “the statement by Pakistan government on NSA level talks with India has not come as a surprise for us”.

Pakistan has however insisted that it has always consulted with Kashmiri leaders before any meetings with India.

In New Delhi, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said Saturday that Aziz would be welcome if he agreed to limit his discussions to ending terrorism and violence.

Indian authorities with brief house arrest of Hurriyat leaders, signalled their opposition to Pakistan’s gestures to engage Hurriyat leaders ahead of any dialogue with India.

Advertisement

The Pakistan High Commission’s invitation to Geelani and other separatist leaders to meet Aziz has upset New Delhi but Pakistan has stuck to the line that such meetings were “routine”. Also there had been terrorist attacks that have emanated from Pakistan in Gurdaspur and Udhampur.

1046 
   
              India Pakistan talks must go on Shabir Shah