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India may not hold a bilateral meeting with Pakistan when the country’s top most official, Sartaj Aziz, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s Advisor on Foreign Affairs, visits India for the Heart of Asia conference on December 3.
Pakistan has already sent an official communication to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) that Aziz will be attending the summit, which is taking place in Amritsar on December 3-4. This is the first time India is hosting the multilateral summit.
The Pakistan government had asked India if a meeting between both the sides can take place during Aziz’s visit in a bid to restart talks on all outstanding issues, including Kashmir, sources told BusinessLine .
India’s standBut, according to Indian officials, the government has made it clear to Pakistan that terror and talks cannot go together.
India believes Pakistan cannot seek resumption of talks on the one hand, and continue to encourage terror activities against India and resort to ceasefire violations, on the other.
Meanwhile, three Indian soldiers were killed in an encounter with terrorists on Tuesday in Macchal in Jammu and Kashmir. According to the Indian Army, the body of one soldier was mutilated. This is the second such incident in a month.
“We have told Pakistan several times that terror and talks cannot go hand in hand. A bilateral at this point is out of question. The Heart of Asia conference is about Afghanistan and we will focus on that,” said a senior official.
Even though Pakistan and India could not restart a peace dialogue in the last two years, both the neighbours had decided that they would resume the composite dialogue, now called the comprehensive bilateral dialogue, including peace and security, Kashmir dispute, Siachen, Sir Creek, Wullar Barrage/Tulbul Navigation Project, economic and commercial cooperation, counter-terrorism, narcotics control, humanitarian issues, people-to-people exchanges and religious tourism.
The decision to resume the comprehensive bilateral dialogue was taken after a meeting between External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Aziz in Islamabad last year. Both sides had even directed their respective Foreign Secretaries to work out the modalities and schedule of the meetings.
Aziz had said last week in Islamabad that his visit to India may turn out to be a “good opportunity” to “defuse tension” between the two governments.
“Unlike India, which had sabotaged the SAARC summit in Pakistan by pulling out, Pakistan will respond by participating in the Heart of Asia being held in India,” Aziz had told the media there. The Heart of Asia - Istanbul Process is a multilateral platform founded in Turkey on November 2011. It is focussed on bringing peace and development in war-torn Afghanistan and its regional partners.
India is one of the 14 participating countries, along with 17 supporting countries, including the US, the EU, Canada and Japan.
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