New Delhi: Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has said his country will no longer take part in a dialogue with India. In an interview to The New York Times, Khan said India mistook his overtures for talks as “appeasement”.
“There is no point in talking to them. I mean, I have done all the talking. Unfortunately, now, when I look back, all the overtures that I was making for peace and dialogue, I think they took it for appeasement,” Khan said in the interview at the prime minister’s office in Islamabad. “There is nothing more that we can do.”
He also claimed that India may carry out “ethnic cleansing and genocide” in Kashmir.
Tensions between India and Pakistan have mounted after 5 August, when the Narendra Modi government decided to scrap Jammu and Kashmir’s special status and bifurcate the state into two Union Territories — J&K and Ladakh.
‘Very explosive situation’
The NYT said it spoke to Khan a day after he had spoken to US President Donald Trump over the phone and told him of a “potentially very explosive situation” between his country and India.
Khan also expressed concern that India might undertake a deceptive operation in Kashmir to try to justify military action against Pakistan. And Pakistan, he said, would be forced to respond.
“And then you are looking at two nuclear-armed countries eyeball-to-eyeball, and anything can happen,” Khan said.
“My worry is that this can escalate and for two nuclear-armed countries, it should be alarming for the world what we are facing now.”
Also read: Tale of two Hitlers in Pakistan: Imran Khan is a fan of good one, keeps the bad one for Modi
Indian ambassador rejects Khan’s claims
India’s ambassador to the United States, Harsh Vardhan Shringla, who was visiting the NYT editorial board, rejected Khan’s criticism.
“Our experience has been that every time we have taken an initiative toward peace, it has turned out badly for us,” PTI quoted the ambassador as saying. “We expect Pakistan to take credible, irreversible and verifiable action against terrorism.”
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has said if there is going to be an India-Pakistan dialogue, it has to be on Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Before that, Singh had also said India might review its ‘No First Use’ nuclear policy.
On the situation in Kashmir, the ambassador said: “We are looking at things going back to normal. Restrictions are being eased based on the ground situation. Public utility services, banks and hospitals are functioning normally.
“There are adequate food stocks. Some restrictions on communication are in the interests of safety and security of the citizenry.”
Trump’s involvement
On Khan’s visit to Washington last month, before the Modi government’s move on Kashmir, President Trump had stated his willingness to mediate the “dispute” between New Delhi and Islamabad. This was the first time Trump raised the issue.
Trump also had a telephone call with PM Modi earlier this week.
Trump spoke about mediation once again between both the nuclear-armed neighbours in an interview to NBC News. “I will do the best I can do mediate or do something,” he said.
ThePrint had reported last week that India is contemplating “revised talking points” with Pakistan, as it believes the Kashmir issue is now “over”.
Also read: Imran Khan was right. Modi did resolve the Kashmir issue once and for all: Reham Khan
(With inputs from PTI)