RAWALPINDI – Pakistan has been calling on India to have a broader dialogueon terrorism rather than addressing solely the Kashmir issue but the Indianside rejects these attempts, spokesman for the Pakistani Army told aRussia’s state media yesterday.
“Whenever we offer India to form dialogue, we say that we want to discussterrorism. But the problem is that India terms just the freedom movement inoccupied Jammu and Kashmir as act of terrorism. We see that terrorism is aregional issue. It has to be discussed what happens in Iran, what happensin Afghanistan, what happens in Pakistan … But India links it only to theoccupied Jammu and Kashmir only,” Major General Asif Ghafoor told Sputniklink inan interview.
He stressed that Prime Minister Imran Khan has lately offered India onceagain to sit at negotiating table to address these problems, but have notreceived any reply. The spokesman also noted that the two countries werehaving weekly military-to-military contacts, but it was enough to resolvethe old grievances.
“There are officers from both the military operational directorates, whichtalk, and we directly discuss certain routine matters of coordination. Butthe Kashmir issue cannot be resolved through these telephoneconversations,” Ghafoor said.
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Tensions between India and Pakistan escalated last month, after thePakistani military shot down two Indian warplanes in the disputed region ofKashmir, responding to an earlier airstrike by Indian aircraft against whatNew Delhi said was a camp of Jaish-e-Mohammad group, considered terroristsby India and located on the Pakistani soil across the so-called Line ofControl, separating India- and Pakistan- controlled areas of Kashmir.
The Indian airstrike came after a deadly attack by Jaish-e-Mohammad on theIndian paramilitary police force in Kashmir in mid-February. While Indiahas accused Pakistan of supporting the militants and having a “direct hand”in the incident, Pakistan, in turn, has rejected the allegations.
