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This adds to a long list of abortive attempts to revive engagement with Islamabad in the past four years. In a remarkable turn of events, India held Pakistan PM Imran Khan directly responsible for incidents of terrorism in Jammu & Kashmir.
Official sources said Khan had let India down by proposing talks at the UNGA in his letter to PM Narendra Modi despite knowing full well that he was not in control of Pakistan’s India policy.
The foreign ministry said two “deeply disturbing’ developments had taken place since the announcement on Thursday, forcing it to call off the dialogue. “The latest brutal killings of our security personnel by Pakistan-based entities and the recent release of a series of 20 postage stamps by Pakistan glorifying a terrorist and terrorism confirm that Pakistan will not mend its ways,” MEA spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said.
“Now, it is obvious that behind Pakistan’s proposal for talks to make a fresh beginning, the evil agenda of Pakistan stands exposed and the true face of Imran Khan has been revealed to the world in his first few months in office,” Kumar added. “Any conversation with Pakistan in such an environment would be meaningless.”
Official sources said they knew all along that they had taken a “big risk” by announcing the UNGA meeting between foreign ministers Sushma Swaraj and Shah Mehmood Qureshi. The calling off, sources said, was in line with India’s policy that terror and talks could not go together.
The decision to agree to Pakistan’s proposal for a meeting between the foreign ministers of the two countries in New York later this month was in response to the spirit reflected in the letters from the new PM and foreign minister of Pakistan. The letter from the Prime Minister of Pakistan had spoken of, inter alia, bringing a positive change and mutual desire for peace as also readiness to discuss terrorism,” MEA spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said.
Interestingly though, the Burhan Wani stamps were issued on July 13 although it was reported by media only recently. This obviously led to questions if the government wasn't aware of it on Thursday evening when it announced the UNGA meeting. The killing of SPOs is also not a new phenomenon. This year alone more than 20 have been killed.
The news about BSF jawan, whose body was found mutilated along the IB, also broke well before the MEA briefing in which talks were announced. The entire episode is reminiscent of August 2014 when the Modi government called off a meeting between the foreign secretaries because of then Pakistani high commissioner Abdul Basit’s meeting with Hurriyat leaders just ahead of the engagement.
That meeting was meant to build upon Modi’s talks with then PM Nawaz Sharif during the latter’s visit to India for Modi’s swearing-in. “We had certain doubts even yesterday while announcing the talks because of the manner in which a BSF soldier was killed. After the announcement, three more cops were killed in J&K. India was left with no option but to cancel the talks,” an official said.
The talks at the UNGA would have been the first substantive engagement between the two countries since December 2015 when they announced resumption of dialogue. It could never take off though because of the Pathankot attack and now, after the developments on Friday, it is unlikely that the two countries will have any “constructive” engagement before polls in India.
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