Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the head of the Pakistan’s People’s Party (PPP), has vowed to “get back” the whole of Kashmir and not leave an inch for India.
Zardari, in his 20s, is the scion of the highly influential Bhutto family and has announced that he will contest the 2018 general elections in Pakistan.
“I will take back Kashmir, all of it, and I will not leave behind a single inch of it because, like the other provinces, it belongs to Pakistan,” he said while addressing party workers in Punjab on Friday.
Taking exception to the PPP chief’s comments, India on Saturday said such an outcome was “far from reality” and asserted that the country’s integrity and unity was non-negotiable.
“We are in the process of looking forward (to our ties with Pakistan), but that does not mean that our borders will be changed. We made it very clear that as far as we are concerned, the integrity and unity of India is non-negotiable,” said External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin.
The PPP chief was flanked by Pakistan former prime ministers Yousaf Raza Gilani and Raja Pervaiz Asharaf when he made the comments about “taking back Kashmir”. Officially, his party wants good ties with India.
Zardari’s mother Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in December 2007, was elected as Pakistan prime minister twice, while his grandfather, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who founded the PPP in 1967, also served as prime minister in the 1970s. His father Asif Ali Zardari was president of Pakistan between 2008 and 2013.
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