Pak pushes for talks, says India not fulfilling commitment

Pushing for resumption of dialogue, Pakistan has suggested that India was not fulfilling its commitment made in the Sharm-el Sheikh joint statement and relinking talks with action against terrorism.

Pakistan High Commissioner Shahid Malik called the break in talks a “diplomatic vacuum”, saying it would only “strengthen” the “forces which don’t want the two nations to make any progress”.

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In an interview to CNN-IBN, on the programme Devil’s Advocate, Malik said Pakistan had not been slow in taking action against those behind the Mumbai attacks. He said his country was “looking for credible actionable evidence” to ensure the case is “foolproof”.

Referring to the “agreement” between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Yousaf Raza Gilani in Sharm-el Sheikh, Malik said, “something that we agreed on has not been acted upon”.

He noted there has been no dialogue since then, which “obviously shows that the agreement that we made in Sharm-el-Sheikh is yet to be implemented”.

A joint statement issued in the Egyptian city in July had delinked dialogue from Pakistan’s action against terrorism.

Asked if India had gone back on its commitment, Malik said, “They are too strong words and I would not like to use it.” On whether India was trying to relink the dialogue process and action against terrorism, he said, “You can put it that way.”

Pakistan, the envoy said, was looking for “a result-oriented focused dialogue”. Noting that already four rounds of dialogue had taken place, he said, “We were hoping and still continue to harbour hope that the two countries would get down and talk to each other and discuss all the issues.”

Malik said the Pakistani leadership has been requesting India to initiate dialogue through their statements, but so far “there has been no response”.

(with PTI inputs)