Adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs and National Security said that, “Indian claims that Pakistan was trying to distort the agenda agreed at Ufa and was imposing “new conditions” for the talks could not be farther from the truth”.
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He also said that talks and terrorism can never go together. He was sharply critical of the Indian government for its insistence that he should not meet Kashmiri separatist leaders while in New Delhi and said this was akin to controlling the guest list for a reception being held for him at the Pakistan High Commission tomorrow.
The minister said that in the spirit of the Simla agreement, there can be no third party, and in the spirit of the Ufa statement, the NSA-level talks would be limited to terrorism.
“There is no basis for talks unless there is an assurance that Pakistani establishment will honour the commitments”, he said, adding that the chain of incidents unfolding now make it clear that whatever happened in the Russian city of Ufa “did not have the support of the entire Pakistani establishment”.
However, the Indian external affairs ministry would not categorically say whether the meeting of NSA was cancelled.
“We are not advising them (separatists) on whether they should visit Delhi to meet Pakistan’s NSA or not”.
But while India wanted to focus on purely security-related matters, Pakistan insisted on Friday that all points of contention, including the contentious Kashmir dispute, are discussed.
The Dawn, a leading newspaper in Paksitan has reported that “both sides issuing statements to emphasise their positions and blame the other for the deadlock”, the events in the run-up to the meeting “were redolent of a strategy by both sides to compel the other to walk away from the meeting”.
Pakistan has responded to the pressure by being more insistent on discussing Kashmir, especially given the hostilities along the de-facto borders of the divided region in recent months. “There is no issue like Kashmir, Kashmir is an integral part of India and it will be”, Naidu told ANI.
“The two security advisers will sit, exchange their respective lists of allegations, and that’s it”, he said.
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“U.S. pressure has forced the two countries to show to the worldwide community that they are negotiating”.
