India and Pakistan squared off on the issues of Kashmir and meaningful engagement at a regional summit in Kazakhstan on Thursday, with minister of state for external affairs Meenakshi Lekhi calling on Islamabad to immediately end cross-border terrorism to create conditions for any dialogue.
Addressing the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures (CICA) Summit in Astana, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif accused the Indian government of committing atrocities in Jammu and Kashmir and said the onus for a result-oriented engagement was on New Delhi.
Lekhi, who represented India at the summit and spoke after Sharif, contended that Pakistan had again misused the CICA platform to “propagate false and malicious propaganda” against India and to distract from the focus of discussions among the grouping’s member states.
“The union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh have been and will remain an integral part of India. Pakistan has no locus standi to comment on India’s internal affairs,” she said.
Sharif’s remarks, she said, amounted to “gross interference in India’s internal affairs, sovereignty and territorial integrity” and were inconsistent with CICA’s principles guiding relations between member states.
Lekhi called on Pakistan to stop the “grave and persistent human rights violations in Pakistan-occupied Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh” and to refrain from any further material changes in the status of the region. Pakistan should also “vacate the Indian territories that are under its illegal and forcible occupation”, she said.
{{/usCountry}}Lekhi called on Pakistan to stop the “grave and persistent human rights violations in Pakistan-occupied Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh” and to refrain from any further material changes in the status of the region. Pakistan should also “vacate the Indian territories that are under its illegal and forcible occupation”, she said.
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“Pakistan is the global epicentre of terrorism and continues to be the source of terrorist activities, including in India. Pakistan continues to make no investment in human development but provides their resources for creating and sustaining infrastructure of terrorism,” Lekhi said.
She added, “Pakistan must immediately cease anti-India cross-border terrorism and shut down its infrastructure of terrorism.”
Lekhi said India desires normal relations with all its neighbours, including Pakistan, which needs to create the grounds for any engagement.
“Pakistan is thereby advised to walk the talk by creating a conducive atmosphere, including by taking credible, verifiable and irreversible actions to not allow any territory under its control to be used for cross-border terrorism against India in any manner,” she said.
This will enable the two sides to engage and address issues bilaterally, she added.
Earlier, Sharif accused India of denying the Kashmiri people their right to self-determination and not acting on UN resolutions. “Pakistan desires peaceful relations with all its neighbours, including India. However, until India brings its atrocities in occupied Kashmir to a grinding halt, just and lasting peace will remain elusive,” he said.
Sharif alleged that “India today is a threat to its minorities, to its neighbours, to its region and to itself”, but added that Pakistan is “willing to engage with India for the sake of peace, prosperity and progress in the region because we cannot afford to have more poverty [and] unemployment on both sides of the border”.
He added, “We just cannot afford to deploy and commit our meager resources towards creating tensions. Enough is enough. We need to really provide education, health, medicines and jobs to millions of our children on both sides of the divide and if we did not act speedily, posterity will not forgive us.”
Sharif said he was “absolutely ready and willing to have serious dialogue and discussion with our counterparts in India provided they show sincerity of purpose and they show that they are ready to discuss issues which have really kept us at a distance over decades”. However, he said that the “onus remains on India to take the necessary step for meaningful and result-oriented engagement”.
India and Pakistan have not had any sustained and substantive engagement since the 2008 Mumbai attacks that were carried out by Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). India’s decision to scrap the special status of Jammu and Kashmir in 2019 further sent ties into a tailspin.