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India and Pakistan meeting at UN to end three-year freeze India cancels meeting with Pakistan at UN because of 'evil agenda'
(about 7 hours later)
The foreign ministers of India and Pakistan are to meet on the sidelines of the UN general assembly next week in the first high-level contact between the neighbours in nearly three years. India has cancelled a meeting between its foreign minister and her Pakistani counterpart less than 24 hours after agreeing to what would have been the first high-level contact between the nuclear-armed neighbours in three years.
India’s external affairs minister, Sushma Swaraj, will meet her Pakistani counterpart, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, in New York during the assembly starting on Monday. Delhi’s foreign affairs spokesman Raveesh Kumar told reporters the planned meeting between Sushma Swaraj and Pakistan’s Shah Mahmood Qureshi had been called off due to events in the past day that had exposed the “evil agenda of Pakistan”.
The meeting was proposed by the newly elected Pakistani prime minister, Imran Khan, in a letter to the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, sent earlier this month and made public on Thursday. He cited the discovery on Friday morning of the bodies of three policemen in Kashmir, a restive Himalayan territory claimed by both countries, and the scene of an insurgency India says is funded and armed by Islamabad.
India stressed the interaction between the officials did not mean peace talks had resumed. “This is just a meeting,” Raveesh Kumar, the spokesman for the Indian ministry of foreign affairs said on Thursday. “This is not a resumption of dialogue. They asked for a meeting and we said yes.” Pakistan’s postal service had also released a series of 20 commemorative stamps showing scenes of what it calls India’s illegal occupation of Kashmir, some honouring slain militant leaders that Delhi regards as terrorists.
Senior officials from the nuclear-armed neighbours have had no public contact since early 2016, when nascent peace talks were suspended after militants attacked an Indian army air force base near the Pakistan border in Punjab state. The latest killings and the release of the stamps “confirm that Pakistan will not mend its ways”, Kumar said.
India says the attack was carried out by Jaish-e-Mohammad, a militant group alleged to have close ties to Pakistan’s military and intelligence apparatus. “The true face of the new prime minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, has been revealed to the world,” he added.
Relations grew worse in September 2016, when gunmen from another Pakistan-based jihadi group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, attacked an army base in the Kashmir region, killing 18 troops. Delhi had initially agreed to a request by Khan inviting the countries’ foreign ministers to meet at the sidelines of the UN general assembly next week.
In response, India sent elite soldiers into Pakistan territory to destroy what it said were militant staging grounds, and Modi called Pakistan a “mothership of terrorism”. Senior officials from the two countries have had no public contact since early 2016, when nascent peace talks were suspended after militants attacked an Indian army air force base near the Pakistan border in Punjab state.
Khan, a former cricketer turned politician, peppered his campaign speeches with anti-India rhetoric but reached out to Delhi in the first days of his leadership to propose the meeting. India believes the attack was carried out by Jaish-e-Mohammad, a militant group alleged to have close ties to Pakistan’s military and intelligence apparatus.
“Pakistan and India have an undeniably challenging relationship,” he wrote. “We, however, owe it to our peoples, especially the future generations, to peacefully resolve all outstanding issues.” The Narendra Modi government had been receiving some criticism, especially among the more jingoistic elements of the country’s media, for agreeing to meet with Pakistan days after an Indian border security officer was found with his throat slit along the ceasefire line between the two countries in Kashmir.
He added: “Pakistan remains ready to discuss terrorism.” Hardline anti-India elements within the Pakistan military have also been accused in the past of sabotaging efforts by the country’s civilian leaders to improve ties with India and turn the page on their 70-year antagonistic relationship.
Pakistan’s alleged sponsorship of militant attacks, including a four-day killing spree in Mumbai by members of Lashkar-e-Taiba in 2008, is a major sticking point in relations between the countries. So is the fate of Kashmir, a Himalayan region divided between the pair but claimed in full by both. Khan, a former cricketer turned politician, peppered his campaign speeches with criticism of India but surprised some by reaching out to Delhi in the first days of his leadership.
“Pakistan and India have an undeniably challenging relationship,” Khan had written in a letter to Modi requesting the meeting. “We, however, owe it to our peoples, especially the future generations, to peacefully resolve all outstanding issues.”
Pakistan is yet to respond to the cancellation of the meeting.
IndiaIndia
PakistanPakistan
South and Central AsiaSouth and Central Asia
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