Onus on Pakistan to take steps for better ties: MEA
Says Islamabad must take proper action against terrorism, stop making alarmist remarks
NEW DELHI: India on Thursday said Pakistan will have to take the initiative to create conditions conducive to meaningful engagement between the two sides even as it again ruled out mediation by any third party on the Kashmir issue.
Pakistan’s leadership will have to take “credible, irreversible and verifiable” steps against terrorist groups and individuals operating from its soil instead of making “misleading and alarmist” statements to divert the world community’s attention, external affairs ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar told a news briefing.
Kumar was responding to remarks by Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan and US President Donald Trump on the margins of the World Economic Forum at Davos. Trump reiterated his offer to help in resolving the Kashmir issue, and Khan said the world would realise Pakistan’s economic potential once the country’s relations with India normalise. Khan also called on the US and the UN to help reduce tensions between India and Pakistan before they reach a “point of no return”.
India is not surprised by the content and tone of Khan’s remarks, which “are not only factually inaccurate and contradictory, but demonstrate a growing sense of frustration”, Kumar said.
“If Pakistan is indeed serious for a peaceful and normal relationship with India as [Khan] claims, the onus is on Pakistan to create a conducive atmosphere. They have to take credible, irreversible and verifiable action against terror groups and individuals operating from its soil rather than making misleading and alarmist statements to divert the attention of the international community,” he added.
Kumar said the world community had seen through Pakistan’s “double standard of playing the victim card in their fight against terror on the one hand and supporting terror groups targeting India and other countries on the other”.
The Indian government had already brushed aside Trump’s offer to help on the Kashmir issue, and Kumar said the country’s position on third party mediation has been clear and consistent. “Let me once again reiterate that there is no role for any third party in this matter,” he said.
“If at all there are any bilateral issues between India and Pakistan to be discussed, it should be done bilaterally under the provisions of the Simla Agreement and the Lahore Declaration. But again as we have said in the past, the onus is on Pakistan to create such conducive conditions, which are free from terror, hostility, and violence, and which could also lead to some meaningful engagement between the two countries.”
India and Pakistan have not had any substantive dialogue since the 2008 Mumbai attacks that were carried out by the Lashkar-e-taiba. Efforts at engagement by both sides since then have produced no results and India snapped all contacts following a string of terror attacks in 2016 that were blamed on Pakistan-based groups.
India also criticised Pakistan at the UN for “spewing venom and false narratives”, using hate speech and obfuscating the truth while raking up the Kashmir issue. India’s deputy permanent representative to the UN, K Nagaraj Naidu, told a session of the General Assembly on Wednesday that Pakistan “indulges in confabulations and obfuscates the international community from the truth” instead of ending its “bellicose and vitriolic diatribe” and taking steps to restore normal ties.
Naidu was responding to Saad Ahmed Warraich, counsellor at the Pakistani mission to the UN after he raised the Kashmir issue during the session.