“This is an important signal to India”, he said in response to a question.
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With such rapid advance in building trust-based ties in sensitive nuclear, defence, maritime and counterterrorism areas, we would have expected the USA to shed its proclivity to take position on India-Pakistan issues at Pakistani prodding.
During his interaction with the U.S. business community on Wednesday, Sharif said that Pakistan is not making any distinction between terrorists, notwithstanding the fact that perpetrators of 26/11 freely roaming around the country. Pakistan has taken very determined actions in the last several years against militants operating on its territory.
In August, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani put a stop on Pakistan’s help for talks when the Taliban launched a series of deadly attacks in Kabul and other parts of the country under their new leader Mullah Akhtar Mansoor. “It is not only an issue of Kashmir, it is also a threat to regional security”, Aziz said. “And as I would say more generally, the USA urges all nuclear-capable states, including Pakistan, to exercise restraint regarding nuclear weapons and missile capabilities”, the official said. The fear of an unstable Pakistan’s nukes falling into the wrong hands had led to United States pumping billions of dollars in aid to Pakistan and also standing with them. The PM has accused India of spoiling all peace initiatives. The main focus of the meeting remained Pakistan’s relationship with the Afghan Taliban.
“Pakistan will never allow limits to be placed on its crown jewel, and particularly those imposed by the United States”.
“We were assured full cooperation in our endeavors for economic reforms and security in the region without any condition and pressure”, said the Prime Minister, who emerged fully satisfied with his talks with the US President that recognized the importance of resolving all outstanding disputes with India, including the core Kashmir dispute. During elections India and Kashmir are vote catching slogans in Pakistan and will continue till then. We stand ready to support such dialogue in any way we can. “We have not reviewed them and we do not have any comment on the contents at this point”, the official said.
Pakistan uses the excuse of Kashmir for its terrorist onslaught against India, which makes it even more necessary not to pander to its Kashmir fixation.
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Apparently, Mr Sharif has been told in no uncertain terms on the need for Islamabad to thrash out the contentious issue with India minus outside interlocutors.
