The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) has appreciated Narendra Modi’s efforts to raise the issue of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) and terrorism during the bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, and added that the Prime Minister needs to focus on Kashmir rather than Balochistan.
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He said that “even the so-called instrument of accession” that Indian claims to hold provides this democratic right to us but it is India that is suppressing our voices that too in the name of being so-called largest democracy.
Modi’s remarks were rejected by Pakistan, with the country’s Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, forming a team of 22 parliamentarians as special envoys that would travel to various countries to highlight the situation on the Kashmir issue and cement Pakistan’s stand in the Kashmir dispute.
He also condemned the terrorist bomb attack at China’s embassy in Kyrgyzstan’s capital Bishkek.
The total trade between the two countries was worth just $2.5 billion a year while its potential was of $20 billion, the Dawn quoted him as saying.
Speaking at an interactive session organised by the Karachi Council on Foreign Relations, he addressed a number of ongoing issues between the two neighbours and said political concerns could take time to resolve, but countries should start by taking up smaller steps.
He also gave example of India-China relationship and said, “We have boundary issues with China but we decided on building other relationships to move forward”. “We have shown our humanity time and again but it is the Indian forces who have and are tarnishing the very ethos of humanity by killing innocents, blinding and injuring young men and women, by harassing and arresting people and torturing and vandalizing whole localities in Kashmir”, he said.
“We asked for consular access to Yadav, but our request was turned down by Pakistan”.
On the question that India was trying to sabotage the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), he said India will not derail any process that is for the betterment of Pakistan.
“We have arrested in Jammu and Kashmir a Pakistani, Bahadur Ali, who has confessed that he received training of terrorism in Pakistan”.
He said India wanted a prosperous and stable Pakistan.
Bambawale also said he knew that the visa process for Pakistanis to visit India was intricate.
“He said that Kashmir is not any nation’s integral part but an internationally accepted disputed territory and people of Jammu Kashmir have been striving and rendering sacrifices from last 70 years for its peaceful resolution”, he said.
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People-to-people relations must go on, he said.
