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Pak calls off NSA level talks
Ending the suspense, Pakistan on Saturday night called off the Indo-Pak NSA-level talks, hours after India made it clear that discussions on Kashmir and a meeting with separatists will not be acceptable. “Pakistan reiterates that the scheduled NSA-level talks cannot be held on the basis of the preconditions set by India,” a statement by the Pakistani Foreign Office said.
Islamabad: Ending the suspense, Pakistan on Saturday night called off the Indo-Pak NSA-level talks, hours after India made it clear that discussions on Kashmir and a meeting with separatists will not be acceptable. “Pakistan reiterates that the scheduled NSA-level talks cannot be held on the basis of the preconditions set by India,” a statement by the Pakistani Foreign Office said.
Pakistan’s announcement brought to an end the battle of attrition as to who would blink first. That the talks was a non-starter was evident in the last two days in view of the acrimonious exchanges between the two sides but the last straw appeared to be External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s virtual ultimatum to Pakistan to give a clear commitment by midnight that it would not go ahead with meeting the separatists.
“There will be no talks,” Swaraj declared when asked what would happen if Pakistan did not accept the position outlined by her on separatists and Kashmir though she maintained these were not pre-conditions. The Minister was reacting to Pakistan NSA Sartaj Aziz’s remarks earlier in the day that he was willing to come to India for talks without any pre-conditions.
Aziz’s talks with his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval on terror-related issues was scheduled to have taken place in Delhi on Monday.What became a red rag for New Delhi was the invitation by the Pakistan High Commission to Hurriyat leaders to meet Aziz ahead of the first-ever NSA-level talks, which was agreed upon in Ufa in Russia in July during the meeting between the two prime ministers--Narendra Modi and Nawaz Sharif.
India was also upset over Pakistan, including Kashmir as part of the agenda for the NSA talks that was mainly scheduled to discuss terror. The Foreign Office statement said Pakistan has "carefully analyzed" the contents of the press conference of Swaraj. “We have come to the conclusion that the proposed NSA level talks between the two countries would not serve any purpose, if conducted on the basis of the two conditions laid down by the Minister,” it said.
Referring to Swaraj's statement, it said that while she accepts that, to ensure durable peace between the two countries, there is a need to discuss all outstanding issues, she then unilaterally restricts the agenda to only two items: creating an atmosphere free from terrorism and tranquility on the LoC.
“Considering that many terror ‘incidents’ blamed initially by India on Pakistan eventually turned out to be fake, it is not improbable that India can delay the Resumed Dialogue indefinitely by concocting one or two incidents and keeping the LoC hot,” it said.
