Pakistan’s Aziz says NSAs in touch, rakes up Kashmir unrest to corner India
The national security advisers of India and Pakistan have held discussions to reduce tensions along the Line of Control --- the de-facto border between the two countries, said Sartaj Aziz, the adviser to prime minister on foreign affairs.
The national security advisers of India and Pakistan have spoken to reduce hostilities along their de-facto border, Islamabad’s top diplomat has said.
Sartaj Aziz’s comments come in the backdrop of New Delhi’s claims that it carried out “surgical strikes” on militant shelters across the Line of Control (LoC), or the de-facto border, in response to an attack on an Indian Army garrison in Kashmir last month.
Since then, the two sides have exchanged heavy gunfire and shelling along their border. Militants also attacked another army base in Baramullah, Kashmir, late on Sunday night.
Aziz, the adviser to prime minister on foreign affairs, told Geo.tv that Pakistan wants to “reduce tensions on LoC”, and added Pakistani NSA Nasser Janjua and his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval have stressed the need to establish contact.
Aziz, however, alleged that India was escalating tensions with Pakistan “to deflect the attention of the world from Kashmir issue”.
“Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had indicated quite clearly that till the issue of Kashmir was not resolved, tensions across the border would remain,” he said.
In his speech at the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in New York last month, Sharif called for an independent inquiry and a UN fact-finding mission into “rights violations” in Kashmir and hit out at India over the unrest triggered by the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani on July 8.
India and Pakistan have been at odds over Kashmir ever since independence nearly 70 years ago, fighting two of their three wars over the territory.
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