“No solution is tenable unless it is in sync with the aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. That is fundamental,” said Abdul Basit, Pakistan’s High Commissioner to India, while talking about engaging in a meaningful dialogue with India over J&K.
Speaking at an event organised by ThePrint, Basit said that the J&K issue is not a territorial dispute and cannot be pushed to the “back-burner”. He went on to add that they do not see India trying to engage Pakistan in a discussion on J&K “at this point of time”.
With LoC marred by regular instances of violence and ceasefire violation, Basit insisted that the Pakistani army is not averse to normalising relations with India.
Our army is as keen on maintaining normal relations with India as I am or our Prime Minister (Nawaz Sharif) is. It will be difficult to do so without touching the core issues. If you keep denying discussions on J&K, we can’t break this impasse in our relations. We need to engage with the sitting government of Pakistan rather than presuming things will not move forward (sic)Abdul Basit
Basit further talked about democracy taking roots in Pakistan and said that “neither military nor security forces can stop diplomacy anymore”.
On being questioned whether Pakistan will not work on the matters of terrorism unless the J&K issue is addressed, Basit said Pakistan is “not shying away from discussing terrorism”, “but bilateral engagement must be separated from terror”.
No country in the world has suffered as much as Pakistan because of terrorism. We have had 9/11 on a daily basis... In order to deal with the scourge of terrorism, we need to engage
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