{"id":37769,"date":"2021-04-28T10:49:38","date_gmt":"2021-04-28T05:19:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kashmir.today\/?p=37769"},"modified":"2021-04-28T10:49:38","modified_gmt":"2021-04-28T05:19:38","slug":"pakistan-ready-for-india-talks-if-it-is-willing-to-revisit-its-recent-actions-in-the-disputed-territory-of-kashmir-fm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/?p=37769","title":{"rendered":"Pakistan ready for India talks if it “is willing to revisit” its recent actions in the disputed territory of Kashmir: FM"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

AL JAZEERA<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Islamabad<\/strong>: Pakistan says it is ready to engage in dialogue with India if its eastern neighbour \u201cis willing to revisit\u201d its recent actions in the disputed territory of Kashmir, Pakistan\u2019s foreign minister says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Speaking to Anadolu news agency in an interview released on Sunday, Pakistani foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi welcomed a recent thawing of relations between the two countries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf India is willing to revisit some of the decisions that they took on August 5, 2019, Pakistan will be more than happy to engage, sit and talk out our differences and sit and, through a dialogue, resolve the outstanding issues,\u201d said Qureshi, referring to India\u2019s 2019 move to revoke Indian-administered Kashmir\u2019s special constitutional status and launch a widespread crackdown in the territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Qureshi\u2019s statement is in line with\u00a0<\/a>Al Jazeera\u2019s exclusive reporting\u00a0of specific actions Pakistan is seeking in relation to Kashmir \u2013 the Himalayan region that both countries claim in full but administer separate portions of \u2013 to restart bilateral talks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Those actions include, but are not limited to, a reversal of the alleged demographic change in Kashmir, the release of political prisoners, the restoring of statehood to the territory, lifting all restrictions on communication and movement, and reducing Indian troop levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

India\u2019s foreign ministry has not commented on the Pakistani foreign minister\u2019s comments or the Al Jazeera report. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Ties between the nuclear-armed neighbours have been virtually frozen since February 2019, when an attack by an armed group on Indian security forces in Indian-administered Kashmir\u00a0sparked a military standoff\u00a0with Pakistan that saw both countries bomb each other\u2019s territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

This February, however, saw the surprise announcement of a\u00a0reaffirmation of a 2003 ceasefire\u00a0at the Line of Control (LoC), which divides Indian-administered Kashmir from Pakistan-administered Kashmir and had seen an increased level of violence from both militaries firing at each other since 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

In March, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote to his Pakistani counterpart Imran Khan to congratulate him on the occasion of Pakistan Day, a national holiday. Pakistan PM Khan responded in kind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A meeting of the countries\u2019 Indus water commissioners also occurred that month in New Delhi. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

On Sunday, FM Qureshi cautioned against attaching too much importance to the nascent process of talks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is too early to make a value judgement on that,\u201d he said, stressing the need for the two countries to avoid active conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe cannot afford to go to war, you know, it will be mutually suicidal,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd no sensible person will advocate a policy of that nature. So, we need to sit and we need to talk.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Regarding the recent communication leading to the reaffirmation of the ceasefire, Qureshi said only that \u201cboth sides contacted each other\u201d, offering no details on the current mechanism for communication between the countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Friday, he had denied that any \u201cpeace talks\u201d were taking place or that the United Arab Emirates had any role in the process,\u00a0contradicting a statement\u00a0by the UAE\u2019s ambassador to the United States <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

SOURCE<\/strong>: AL JAZEERA<\/em> <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Kashmir Today staff and is published from a syndicated feed.).<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AL JAZEERA Islamabad: Pakistan says it is ready to engage in dialogue with India if its eastern neighbour \u201cis willing to revisit\u201d its recent actions in the disputed territory of Kashmir, Pakistan\u2019s foreign minister says. Speaking to Anadolu news agency in an interview released on Sunday, Pakistani foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi welcomed a recent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16979,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-union-territory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37769\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}