Arun Jaitley accuses Pakistan of scuttling environment for bilateral talks

Defence minister Arun Jaitley said Pakistan responds to India’s steps to ease tension by terror attacks at Pathankot, Uri and mutilating the bodies of Indian soldiers.

Defence minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday accused Pakistan of scuttling the environment that must exist for bilateral talks between the two neighbours even as he asserted that Kashmir situation is better than is being perceived.

Finance and defence minister Arun Jaitley.(Reuters File Photo)

He further said that while India has taken several significant steps to ease tension, Pakistan responded by terror attacks at Pathankot, Uri and mutilating the bodies of Indian soldiers.

“The Government of India has taken significant steps to ease the situation in the past... The fact that our Prime Minister dropped in at Lahore at a social function in Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s family, were all steps intended to ease the tension.

“But each one of these have been responded by, let us say, a Pathankot or a Uri or by mutilation of two of our soldiers. And, therefore, that environment which must exist for a talk has been successfully prevented by Pakistan,” Jaitley said.

Addressing the media on completion of three years of the Modi government, Jaitley said the Indian Army and the BSF are “dominating” the Line of Control (LoC) irrespective of where the troubles are being created by foreign insurgents or domestic terrorists.

“The security forces have been able to build up a lot of pressure on them, and the results, some of which are evident almost on a daily basis... The situation in Kashmir is better than the impression,” he said.

The Indian Army had last week said it launched “punitive fire assaults” on Pakistani positions across the LoC, inflicting “some damage”, days after two of Indian soldiers were beheaded.

It had also released a video of the military action which showed some structures in a forested area crumbling in a heap under the impact of repeated shelling.

Admitting that the situation in challenging in South Kashmir, he said it is normal in the rest of the state and recently the two-day meeting of the GST Council was held in Srinagar.