Congress president also slams Modi govt for ‘lack of coherent policy’ to deal with Pakistan, says India should wait till Pakistan resolves all pending issues.
New Delhi: Congress president Rahul Gandhi Friday said that much is still needed to be done by Pakistan before India resumes talks with the neighbouring country.
Rahul’s comment assumes significance as Pakistan’s new Prime Minister Imran Khan recently expressed his willingness to resume talks with India.
To move forward Pakistan and India must dialogue and resolve their conflicts incl Kashmir: The best way to alleviate poverty and uplift the people of the subcontinent is to resolve our differences through dialogue and start trading https://t.co/V2UkXp0WwS
— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) August 21, 2018
The Congress president also questioned the supremacy of the Pakistan’s Prime Minister.
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“In the UK, if you sign something with the Prime Minister, all the institutions that make the UK accept PM’s supremacy. This is not the case with Pakistan,” he said, speaking at an event at International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
“We also face the fact that Pakistan promotes terrorism in our country and we have to fight that and we will fight that,” Rahul added.
He said the present NDA government is reiterating what the previous UPA regime had said — that terror and talks cannot go together. However, Rahul blamed the Modi government for what he called the lack of a coherent strategy in dealing with Pakistan.
Rahul is currently in London as part of his tour to speak about his vision about India and the current political situation in the subcontinent.
To a question about his party’s policy on relations with Pakistan, Rahul said, “Pakistan from our perspective is a number of institutions. The difficulty from an India perspective is which institutions do you talk to?” he asked.
“Some of these institutions are hostile to India; some are attacking India and we don’t want to talk to them,” he added.
He praised the former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s move to visit Lahore.
“Mr Vajpayee went to Pakistan with good intentions. But he was saying something to the Prime Minister and then something else was being done by the army,” Rahul said.
He suggested that the India should not take any hasty decision on the issue of resuming dialogue with Pakistan. “You wait till Pakistan resolves all these issues and is able to have a coherent structure you can talk to,” Rahul said.
Last week, Congress leader and Punjab minister Navjot Singh Sidhu stirred a controversy by hugging Pakistan Army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa at Imran Khan’s swearing-in ceremony in Islamabad.
After drawing flak, Sidhu later clarified that he had received invitation to attend Khan’s swearing-in ceremony and that he had to gone there as a goodwill ambassador.
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The cricketer-turned-politician also said if India and Pakistan can settle their differences through talks, become good neighbours and increase mutual exchanges in trade and other aspects, then it will be a great hope and message for South Asia.
Since the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, the Congress has been maintaining that Pakistan must demonstrate that it has taken some action against the perpetrators of 26/11 before any dialogue can start.
Whatever may be the public posturing, the fact is that an intense, sustained dialogue did take place during the Singh – Musharraf years. Whether the two sides were close to a deal – as responsible people have claimed – is difficult to judge. However, the fact that a former army chief, and not a statesmanlike figure at that, was pursuing a non territorial solution offers hope that the two countries might some day be able to resolve this dispute. It would help if Kashmir and Pakistan could be detached from our domestic politics.