BackIndia ready for talks with Pakistan, but wants focus on terrorism
A letter by foreign secretary S. Jaishankar was handed over to the Pakistan foreign office, accepting his Pakistani counterpart's invitation to visit Islamabad
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New Delhi: India on Thursday made public the contents of a letter handed over to Pakistan that accepts Islamabad’s talks offer but seeks to redefine its focus from the Kashmir dispute to include in its ambit the cessation of cross-border terrorism and discussions on the “earliest possible vacation" of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
The letter, dated 16 August, from foreign secretary S. Jaishankar, was handed over to the Pakistan foreign office on Wednesday. It conveyed Jaishankar’s acceptance of his Pakistani counterpart’s invitation to visit Islamabad “but made it clear that naturally, the discussions should focus first on the more pressing aspects of the J&K situation", foreign ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup said.
These include the “cessation of cross-border terrorism by Pakistan aimed at J&K, ending incitement to violence and terrorism from Pakistan in J&K, detaining and prosecuting internationally recognised Pakistani terrorist leaders who have been publicly active recently in exhorting and supporting such violence in that state, closing down of Pakistani terrorist camps where terrorists continue to be trained and denying safe haven, shelters and support to terrorists in Pakistan who have escaped Indian law," he said.
The references were to India’s charge that Pakistan abets terrorism against it in Jammu and Kashmir, shelters militants like Hafiz Saeed who head groups like the Lashkar-e-Toiba that target India and houses camps that train militants to infiltrate into India and attack targets in Kashmir and other parts of the country.
Jaishankar’s missive was in response to a letter handed over to Indian high commissioner Gautam Bambawale on 15 August in Islamabad in which Pakistan’s foreign secretary Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry offered to hold talks with India “on the Jammu and Kashmir dispute that has been the main bone of contention between India and Pakistan".
“The letter highlights the international obligation of both the countries to resolve the Jammu and Kashmir dispute, in accordance with the UN Security Council resolutions," a Pakistani statement said.
The Pakistani offer of talks came amid a spike in tensions following the unrest in Kashmir, triggered by the killing of Burhan Wani by security forces in July.
Pakistan angered India by describing Wani, who India says was a militant belonging to the Hizbul Mujahideen group, as a Kashmiri leader.
Wani’s death triggered protests and clashes with security forces in Kashmir valley, in which more than 60 people have been killed. Pakistan observed a “Black Day" on 20 July to protest alleged human rights violations in Kashmir.
Home minister Rajnath Singh was greeted by protests over Kashmir when he visited Islamabad earlier this month for a South Asian home ministers’ meeting. Pakistan’s offer over the weekend to send relief supplies to people in Kashmir annoyed India further.
According to Swarup, Jaishankar’s letter conveyed that “he looks forward to discussing with his counterpart the earliest possible vacation of Pakistan’s illegal occupation of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir". India and Pakistan both claim Kashmir in its entirety but administer it in parts.
India’s long-standing demands of bringing to book those who planned and executed the 2008 Mumbai attacks and the perpetrators of the 2 January Pathankot attacks also found mention in Jaishankar’s letter to Pakistan.
“He (Jaishankar) said that his visit should provide the opportunity to receive a briefing from Pakistan’s foreign secretary on progress in this regard," Swarup said.
According to C.U. Bhaskar, director at the New Delhi-based Society for Policy Studies think tank, “India’s position on terrorism has been consistent" for more than a decade when the then prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee agreed with Pakistan’s president Pervez Musharraf that Pakistan’s soil would not be used for terrorism against India in 2004.
“That position has not changed and has carried on from Vajpayee to (the tenure of Prime minister Narendra) Modi," he said.
“India has not changed any of the goal posts. It is Pakistan that has not honoured its commitments. I think Pakistan will not accept India trying to hold it to its past commitments and will try and find a way to get out of talks with India," Bhaskar said.
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