The Indian Government has questioned the timing of Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit’s interactions with seperatists in New Delhi saying the Foreign Secretary level talks were only to prepare the roadmap for future dialogues and nothing substantive this time. “So why bring the separatists in betweenIJ”
Basit had claimed that ‘consultations’ with separatists prior to Foreign Secretary-level talks was part of the process to ‘engage all stakeholders’ on the issue of Jammu & Kashmir, which the Ambassador termed as bilateral dispute. India called off the talks and bluntly told Pakistan that there are only two stakeholders in this matter —India and Pakistan. The Pakistani diplomat while terming the cancelation of talks unfortunate, said both countries should move forward.
However, in a snub to this statement, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin said: “In diplomacy it is not always about saying the right things at the right time. It is also about avoiding to say the wrong things at any time.”
He added that when Government of India takes a decision it takes all factors and every situation into account. “In this case we were not having talks but we were going to have talks. Our understanding was these talks were to be about talks. These were not any substantive, meaningful engagements but were only going to lead to that. Therefore, we felt that it would not serve any purpose in an environment when there were diplomatic discussions on how to go about it. A series of action were taken which were not conducive to proceed ahead,” said Akbaruddin.
The spokesperson added that a possible meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Nawaz Sharif on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in the United States of America could have been discussed during the Foreign Secretary talks. “But since she didn’t go it is not there,” said Akbaruddin.