New Delhi: India has laid out the conditions on the basis of which, it clarified, Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar has expressed his willingness to travel to Islamabad to hold talks with his Pakistani counterpart.
Interestingly, India also upped the ante by stating that the people in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) are “our own” and that India has a future strategy in place as far as PoK and Balochistan are concerned.
India wants that the discussions should first focus on the more pressing aspects of the Jammu and Kashmir situation that include, as spelled out by the Ministry of External Affairs, cessation of cross-border terrorism by Pakistan aimed at J&K; detaining and prosecuting internationally recognised Pakistani terrorist leaders, who have been publicly active recently in exhorting violence in the state; and denying safe havens to terrorists in Pakistan that have escaped Indian law, among other conditions.
India, in laying out these conditions, said the ball was in Pakistan’s court now and it was yet to hear back from Pakistan.
MEA spokesperson Vikas Swarup said as far as PoK and Baluchistan were concerned, India would do what it took.
“As far as the next course of action is concerned, the Prime Minister also gave us certain instructions in the all-party meet. How those instructions will be implemented, I cannot at this stage share with you. However, the MEA will do what it has to do; after all the people of PoK are our own people,” Swarup said.
India also said the Foreign Secretary looked forward to discussing with his Pakistani counterpart “the earliest possible vacation of Islamabad’s illegal occupation” of J&K.
Jaishankar’s visit would provide India a chance to press on Pakistan to bring all those guilty in the Mumbai attacks of 2008 and the Pathankot attacks to justice, it said.
Taking a dig at Pakistan, Swarup said during the visit, the foreign secretary would get an opportunity to receive a briefing from Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary in this regard.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Independence Day spoke from the Red Fort and for the first time ever raised the issue of PoK and Baluchistan in his address. The rhetoric, at least, has now been raised at the highest level
