India to boycott Saarc summit in Pakistan

hyderabad — India won’t attend the proposed Saarc Summit in Pakistan and there will be no dialogue with Islamabad until it stops sponsoring terrorism, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj announced on Wednesday.

Sushma Swaraj made it clear that New Delhi will not participate in the Saarc summit and it was not responding to an invite from Pakistan for Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the gathering of South Asian leaders.

“As I said, unless and until Pakistan stops terrorist activities in India, there will be no dialogue and we will not participate in Saarc,” she told the media here.

Modi will be invited to Pakistan for the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) Summit, Foreign Office spokesman Mohammed Faisal said on Tuesday.

India had pulled out of the 19th Saarc summit that was to be held in Islamabad after the deadly terrorist attack on an Indian Army camp in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir in September that year.

The summit had to be called off after Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan also declined to attend. Maldives and Sri Lanka are the other two members of the regional

Unless and until Pakistan stops terrorist activities in India, there will be no dialogue and we will not participate in Saarc.

Sushma Swaraj, Minister of External Affairs

grouping. No summit meeting of Saarc has happened ever since.

Sushma Swaraj said on Wednesday that talks and terror cannot go together.

She said that although India welcomed the development of the Kartarpur corridor for Sikh pilgrims, it would not have any dialogue with Islamabad till it stopped sponsoring terrorism.

“Bilateral dialogues and Kartarpur

corridor are two different things. I am very happy that for the last 20 years, rather many years, the government of India has been asking for this Kartarpur corridor and for the first time Pakistan responded positively,” she said.

“But that doesn’t mean that bilateral dialogue will start... We always say terror and talks can’t go together. The moment Pakistan stops terrorist activities in India, the dialogue can start. The dialogue is not connected with only Kartarpur corridor,” she added.

Sushma Swaraj said she could not attend Kartarpur ceremony because she was tied up with a visit to Telangana. —