In provocative remarks on the eve of Indo-Pak security talks, Pakistan’s National Security Advisor Sartaj Aziz on Tuesday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants to dictate terms for dialogue with Islamabad which will never accept any parleys without Kashmir being on the agenda.
“Narendra Modi contested elections on an anti-Pakistan platform and now wants to dictate terms for the dialogue with Pakistan but we will never accept this and we have already conveyed it to New Delhi,” Aziz was quoted as saying by Dawn News.
He also asserted that a “befitting reply” would be given to any “Indian misadventure”.
Aziz had last month said the NSA-level talks were cancelled due to India’s inflexibility as it refused to discuss Kashmir.
“No dialogue with India can be successful without the Kashmir issue being part of the agenda,” Aziz said.
He rejected Indian allegations about the presence of Dawood Ibrahim in Pakistan and alleged that the Prime Minister Modi-led government’s policy is anti-Pakistan from day one.
Aziz’s remarks came a day before DG-level talks between Pakistan Rangers and Border Security Force in Delhi.
Aziz said Pakistan would raise the issue of “unprovoked firing” by Indian troops across the Line of Control during the five-day DG-level talks.
He said the meeting was part of the Ufa declaration when the Prime Ministers of the two countries met and agreed on different steps to engage with each other.
“The meeting is aimed at reducing tension on the Line of Control and the Working Boundary…The issue of the implementation of the 2003 ceasefire agreement will be raised at the meeting,” he said.
Aziz said Pakistan would not be pressured by Indian threats of an attack.
Meanwhile, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Tariq Fatemi told China’s state-run Global Times that talks between India and Pakistan will not take place if New Delhi insists on “pre-conditions”.
“Prior to the meeting (NSA-level talks), the Indians placed pre-conditions on what can be discussed, what cannot be discussed and who we should meet and who we should not meet,” he said.
“Now this is against international practice. Never before in the history of Pakistan and India talks, has any side placed pre-conditions. If India insists on the pre-conditions, the talks cannot take place,” Fatemi said.
Aziz, while responding to Union Minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore’s comments that the government could resort to a covert or special operation to bring to justice fugitives taking shelter in Pakistan, said if there is any such thing, “a befitting response will be given”.
“If anyone has this notion that after such an attempt they can get away with it, it is their wishful thinking,” he told reporters.
Meanwhile, Fatemi told the Chinese daily, “the threat to Pakistan is from our neighbouring country.”
Fatemi said Pakistan has made it very clear that the India-Pakistan problems, “which are many and serious, can only be resolved through a dialogue process.”
“We are willing and prepared to enter to a series of dialogues with India, any time, any place, bilaterally, regionally. We are prepared for the UN to play a role in it. We are prepared for the secretary general to play a role in it,” he said.
Asked about reports that Pakistan is producing 20 nuclear weapons a year and could become the world’s third biggest nuclear power in the next decade or so, he said western media has spread negative stories about Pakistan and China.
On the USD 46 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, he said, “this is a project that will take many years and many billions of dollars.”
“It will transform the entire region because it will establish connectivity among the countries of the region, bringing economic growth and development, contributing to the prosperity, as well as strengthening peace and stability in the entire region,” he said.
(With agency inputs)
