Onus on India to create environment for engagement, stop smear campaign: Pakistan | Latest News India

NEW DELHI: Pakistan needs to reflect on the future of its relations with India as a BJP-led government begins a new term in New Delhi, and the onus is on the Indian side to create an environment for purposeful engagement, Pakistani deputy prime minister Ishaq Dar has said.

Dar, who is also the foreign minister and a close aide of PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif, told a gathering in Islamabad on Tuesday that Pakistan has always been receptive to constructive engagement with India but will take all steps to maintain strategic stability in South Asia.

He made the remarks while addressing an event to mark the 51st anniversary of the establishment of the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad (ISSI), a think tank backed by Pakistan’s foreign ministry.

While speaking on Islamabad’s relations with countries in the neighbourhood, Dar said the relationship with India has historically remained troubled but Pakistan does not believe in “perpetual hostility”.

“In our view, as the BJP-led NDA government starts a new term, it is high time for a sober reflection on the future of India-Pakistan relations and the cross-cutting issues affecting the entire region,” he said. India’s decision of August 5, 2019 to scrap Jammu and Kashmir’s special status adversely affected bilateral relations, he said.

“The onus remains on India to take necessary steps to create an enabling environment for purposeful engagement and result-oriented dialogue on all issues,” he added.

There was no immediate response from Indian officials to Dar’s comments. Since scrapping Jammu and Kashmir’s special status, the Indian side has maintained that this was an internal matter. India has also linked any dialogue with Pakistan to Islamabad ending its support for cross-border terrorism.

Pakistan, Dar said, wants good neighbourly relations with India based on mutual respect, sovereign equality and a just and peaceful resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute. “While Pakistan has always been receptive to constructive engagement through dialogue that includes all outstanding issues, Pakistan would never agree to unilateral approaches or attempts to impose India’s will or hegemony,” he said.

Pakistan will take all steps to maintain strategic stability in South Asia and “respond effectively and decisively to all ill-considered military misadventures by the Hindutva-driven dispensation in New Delhi”, he said.

He said India should give up what he described as a “relentless smear campaign against Pakistan” and desist from “state sponsorship of terrorism and extra-judicial killings inside Pakistan” so that the relationship moves in a positive direction.

“If they do so, we are also ready to do the same,” Dar said.

In April, defence minister Rajnath Singh said that India would give a befitting reply to terrorists trying to disrupt the peace or attempting to carry out terror activities in India, and this includes hunting them down even in Pakistan. He was responding to a report by The Guardian that Indian intelligence had killed 20 terrorists within Pakistan.

Dar’s comments came against the backdrop of India-Pakistan ties being completely frozen. Since a new government was formed in Islamabad following elections in February, leaders such as Dar have spoken about the possibility of reviving trade with India to create conditions for a thaw. However, such moves have also been linked to the Kashmir issue.

Dar also spoke about Pakistan’s desire for peaceful, cooperative and good neighbourly relations with all countries in the neighbourhood, as he focused on ties with Afghanistan and China.

Pakistan wants a peaceful, stable, united and prosperous Afghanistan and has emphasised the need for inclusive governance and respect for the rights of all Afghans. He stressed the “imperative need to ensure Afghanistan’s soil is not used for terrorism against any state” and said there is “credible evidence” that Afghan territory has been used for recent terror attacks against Pakistan.

China, he said, remains Pakistan’s “most trusted and reliable friend” within the neighbourhood and the “all-weather strategic cooperative partnership” with Beijing is a cornerstone of Islamabad’s foreign policy. He also highlighted the role of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) – an initiative opposed by India as it passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir – in regional prosperity.