Basit defends talks with separatists

New Delhi: Two days after the Modi govt called off the foreign secretary levels talks between India and Pakistan as its High Commissioner Abdul Basit went ahead with his meetings with the Kashmiri separatists, there are no signs of any change in Pakistan’s stand.

On the contrary, giving the Hurriyat leaders the status of stakeholders Basit justified these meetings. ”We have been meeting Kashmiri leaders for several years; our objective is to engage with all stake holders,”he maintained as he replied to a barrage of questions on this subject in his interaction with the media at the local Foreign Correspondents Club this afternoon. Basit stuck to the point that these meetings with Hurriyat leaders have been going on for years, and even as he did concede that there could be the ‘changed sensitivities’ in view of a new government in Delhi, that perhaps for Pakistan was not reason enough to drop this practice.