India not to attend Saarc meet in Pakistan
Swaraj says 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
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.
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 Co-operation (Saarc) Summit, Foreign Ofice spokesman Mohammed Faisal said on Tuesday.
The Saarc Summit of 2016 which was to be held in Pakistan was cancelled after India boycotted the event, triggering a pullout by Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Bhutan.
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 irst 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.
She refused to comment on Punjab Ministernavjotsinghsidhu’sparticipation in the ceremony related to the corridor opening and referred to his statement that he was going there in his personal capacity.
The minister said it was for the Punjab chief minister and Congress party to comment on Sidhu’s participation.
Union Ministers Harsimrat Kaur Badal and Hardeep Puri are in Pakistan to attend the ceremony. Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan will perform the ground breaking ceremony for the project near the Kartarpur Sahib gurdwara, where Sikhism’s founder, Guru Nanak Dev, spent the last 18 years of his life.
Swaraj, responding to questions, emphasised that though ministers Harsimrat Kaur Badal and Hardeep Singh Puri were attending the Kartarpur event in Lahore, it should not be seen in the context of dialogue that has been suspended between the countries since 2013.
“See,bilateraldialoguesandkartarpur corridor are two different things. And I am very happy that for the last 20 years, rather many years, India has been asking for the Kartarpur corridor and for the irst time, Pakistan responded positively to this. But it doesn’t mean that the bilateral dialogue will start only on this.
“The bilateral talks always say that terror and talks can’t go together. The moment Pakistan stops terrorist activities in India, the dialogue can start. But the dialogue is not only connected with Kartarpur corridor,” Swaraj said.
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan opened the ground-breaking ceremony of the Kartarpur corridor linking Gurdwara Darbar Sahib, the inal resting place of Guru Nanak Dev in Pakistan, to Dera Baba Nanak in Gurdaspur.
Pakistan army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa was also present at the ceremony at Narowal, 120 km from Lahore.