New Delhi: Pakistan has claimed that India sent a message to Islamabad expressing its “desire for a conversation”, but Islamabad insists that Kashmir be a party in the talks. The claim was made in an interview by Moeed W. Yusuf, Special Assistant on national security and strategic policy planning to Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, to an Indian media portal Tuesday.
However, there was no confirmation on this from New Delhi.
Appeared on @thewire_in with @karanthapar_in to discuss Pakistan-India relations and the future of security in our region.
First interview of a Pakistani official since 5th Aug, 2019. Discussed all issues in-depth.
Will be aired shortly today.
— Moeed W. Yusuf (@YusufMoeed) October 13, 2020
During the 75-minute interview to journalist Karan Thapar, which was published on The Wire, Yusuf said Pakistan is willing to talk on both issues concerning Kashmir as well as terrorism.
“I want to talk about both,” Yusuf said in the interview, adding that Pakistan “stands for peace and we want to move forward”.
He also said India must “reverse” the decision on Kashmir referring to the revocation of Article 370 last August, which they view as “military siege” in the Valley, and also demanded a “roll back of the new domicile law”.
Yusuf also said India’s move to scrap Article 370 is “not an internal matter” of New Delhi but a “matter for the UN”. He also said “Kashmiris hate Indians”.
ThePrint reached the Ministry of External Affairs via email for a comment on the matter, but there was no response until the publication of this report.
Referring to India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, Yusuf said, “Compare me to my counterpart in India” and added that his objective is to “increase the political space” for Prime Minister Khan.
He also said equating Prime Minister Khan’s silence on Uyghur Muslims, a Turkic-speaking ethnic minority in China, with his accusations of a genocide in Kashmir is “false equivalence” and that the former is a “non-issue” and he “was hundred per cent satisfied that the Uyghurs were being treated properly by the Chinese government and that there was no problem”.
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Jadhav has been caught ‘pants down’
On the issue of former Indian Navy officer Kulbhushan Jadhav, who is presently serving a death sentence in Pakistan over charges of espionage and terrorism, Yusuf said he was caught with “pants down”.
“He refused to accept that Pakistan has denied India unimpeded and unconditional consular access and repeatedly would not answer why a Pakistani official was always present at meetings with Jadhav and why Pakistan insisted on recording the meetings,” the report said.
Yusuf also accused India of perpetrating terror in Pakistan and claimed that the “handler of the 2014 terrorist attack on an Army school in Peshawar was in touch with an Indian consulate”. He added: “We have evidence to the T.”
“Yusuf also accused the Indian Embassy in Afghanistan of using think-tanks as a front to funnel money to Baloch terrorists. He claimed the Balochistan National Army commander had been treated in a hospital in Delhi,” the report stated.
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C’mon ‘ThePrint’.
A known, soft on Pakistan, anti-Modi media portal providing a platform to a Pakistani bureaucrat to vent his frustration shouldn’t be the basis of any meaningful speculations about our foreign policy.
Hafiz Saeed couldn’t have sounded different from this interviewee. Such interviews will further deteriorate the bilateral relations.
Karan Thapar and The Wire, you don’t need to go beyond the headline; you know both need to be nothing but anti India. So just roll your eyes
This guy probably thinks he is too smart but he is rather naive in the world of diplomacy. His antics can work for a few times but he will be cut to size thereafter.
I personally do support talks with Pakistan but at what cost? Frankly speaking, our generation has seen too much bloodshed. The current policy of Zero Diplomacy works for us Indians. Let’s maintain this Status Quo and let the future generation decide what is best for our respective countries. Maybe our generation is simply not capable enough to deal with such issues!
Actually PoK should be the 3rd party
Actually PoK should be the 3rd party
Thapar was issued a ” Thappad” by Modi in his first and last interview.
That was not a wrong decision by him, seeing this platform being given to this absurd proposal from this absurd NSA.
Whether talks will bear fruit is hard to judge. However, they will do no harm. This has been an especially arid phase in the relationship. The standoff with Pakistan – dictated to a large extent by domestic politics – has led to distortions in overall foreign policy. Dr Manoj Joshi has concluded a recent column in Tribune by saying that India comes across in global fora as a naysayer, clear about what it does not want, but unable to articulate what it does want. Seen for instance in Afghanistan.
So basically nothing has changed and nothing will ever change!! We are where we were! Then why bother with the interview?