India and Pakistan blamed each other for the cancellation of talks between their national security advisers that were scheduled for this week, with the rivals squabbling over the agenda.
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The News global under the headline “No talks with pre-conditions, Pakistan tells India” reported that “without waiting to burn the midnight oil and succumbing to “orders” from New Delhi, Pakistan responded to the “hilarious” Indian directives by saying that it will not attend the NSA level talks on the basis of preconditions set by India“.
Pakistan on late Saturday evening called off NSA-level talks citing conditions put forward by India were unacceptable.
He said Pakistan has prepared a proposal, which they hope to exchange with India, on setting up a mechanism so that some progress could be made on maintaining peace and tranquility on the border.
Sushma Swaraj said there have been 99 ceasefire violations by Pakistan since the Ufa statement, and also mentioned the attack in Gurdaspur of Punjab and Udhampur in Jammu & Kashmir, where a terrorist was arrested.
“And we believe it’s important for leaders of both countries to resume this dialogue and discussion and to try to come to some resolution”, he said.
“Pakistan should not have deviated from the agenda decided during the meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif [in Ufa in July]”, he said.
Pakistan said this is the only way to improve the prospects for peace between the two countries.
Asked what would happen if Pakistan did not agree to India’s demands regarding the agenda of the talks which had been due to take place Sunday in New Delhi, Swaraj replied: “Then talks won’t happen”. Pakistan’s Express Tribune reports that the next opportunity for the two NSAs to meet may be as soon as September, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly session (where Modi and Sharif are also expected to meet again).
“India is not honest in resolving the Kashmir dispute peacefully”, they said in a statement.
Aziz also said Pakistan will not propose talks in New York when leaders of the two countries will be present next month for multilateral summits and insisted that it is up to India to do so.
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Earlier, Aziz said in Islamabad he was disappointed that India had “virtually cancelled” the scheduled talks.
