Islamabad: Pakistan President Mamnoon Hussain has said that his government wants peaceful ties with all neighbours by addressing disputes through talks as he accused India of ‘running away from talks’ despite Islamabad’s offer of joint-probe in the deadly Pathankot terror attack.
"Despite Pakistan's efforts for resumption of talks (with India) and its offer of joint probe in the Pathankot attack, the foreign secretary level talks are still suspended. Pakistan is concerned about it," the President said on Wednesday while addressing the joint session of the Parliament.
The President further said that Pakistan is a peaceful country and wants its foreign policy to be based on friendship and brotherhood with all nations.
"We do not wish to be aggressive towards any nation and intend to participate with honesty in national and global affairs," he said.
The ties between the two neighbouring countries are going through a chill after the cancellation of Foreign Secretary-level talks following January 2 attack at the IAF base in Pathankot that killed seven Indian security officials. India has accused Pakistan-based terror group Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) for the attack and has been pressing for action against the terrorists responsible for the audacious attack on the frontier IAF base.
Before this, in August last year, India had called off NSA-level talks following differences over the agenda proposed by Islamabad and a planed meeting between Kashmiri separatists and Pak’s NSA Sartaz Aziz. At that time, India had insisted that the talks would be held on terror issue but Pakistan said that it wanted to discuss the Kashmir issue, killing the Ufa spirit where Indian PM Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart had agreed that both New Delhi and Islamabad have a ‘collective responsibility’ to ensure peace.
Hussain also took the opportunity to rake up the Kashmir issue, calling it an ‘unfinished agenda of partition’ and the main cause of regional tension.
"We believe the main cause of tension in the region is the Kashmir issue. It is part of unfinished agenda of partition of the sub-continent. Unless Kashmir issue is settled according to the wishes of people of Kashmir and UN resolutions, the problems of this region cannot be resolved," he said.
Pakistan has time and again raked up the Kashmir issue calling the conflict a ‘core issue’. Even at the UNSC, Pakistan had maintained that the issue of Jammu and Kashmir will always be on top of the agenda of any bilateral dialogue. In April, when Pakistan Foreign Secretary had visited New Delhi and met his Indian counterpart S Jaishankar, he too had raised the matter saying ‘it requires a just solution in accordance with the UN Security Council resolutions and the wishes of the Kashmiri people’.
Stating that the political system of Pakistan has become strong enough to successfully face different kinds of crisis, Hussain said, “It means that our nation has come to the conclusion that sustainable progress and stability cannot be achieved without democracy."
He said Pakistan was making progress in the economic field and the country achieved 4.7 per cent growth in the outgoing fiscal years which will end on June 30.
On Pakistan-China relationship, he said, “The partnership was important for national economic growth and the multi-billion dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor will be completed at every cost.”
The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor has been called a ‘game changer’ by the Pakistani government, with some saying that this $46 billion Chinese investment over the next decade-and-a-half will make Islamabad the next ‘Asian Tiger’.
India had in past made its objections clear to China about construction and investment in the China Pakistan Economic Corridor that runs through Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir. China had, however, dismissed India's concerns, describing the corridor as an economic project.
