Jaishankar

POK is, has always been, and will always be, very clear — POK is part of India and we expect one day that we will have the physical jurisdiction over it,” Jaishankar said.

India’s August 5 decision to nullify Article 370, the constitutional provision that gave special status to Jammu & Kashmir, and to split the state into two Union Territories triggered fresh tensions with Pakistan. India has rejected the Pakistani leadership’s contention that the issue could lead to a war, and New Delhi has said Islamabad is using the matter to support jihad and cross-border terrorism.

“With regard to Pakistan, the issue is not (Article) 370, the issue is Pakistan’s terrorism. There is no change really,” Jaishankar said, asking which country would accept a neighbour openly using terrorism as part of its foreign policy.

“What should come on the table first is the terrorism issue, because that is the root cause of the state of the relationship,” he added.

At the same time, Jaishankar virtually ruled out the possibility of a meeting with his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi on the margins of a South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) foreign ministers’ meeting in New York, as well as between Modi and Khan. Noting that Khan recently remarked that there was no point talking with India, Jaishankar said, “Part of the problem with Pakistan is it’s only been doing talking. It’s not been doing anything on terrorism. They think nice words are an answer to the real problem (which) is the dismantlement of this industry that they have created.”

Noting that Saarc was all