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No Putin offer to mediate with Pak, says India

Last Updated 15 June 2017, 19:29 IST

Moscow and New Delhi on Thursday dismissed Islamabad’s claim that Russian President Vladimir Putin had offered to mediate between India and Pakistan.

Soon after Islamabad welcomed Putin’s offer to mediate between India and Pakistan, New Delhi said that it had not received any such proposal from Moscow. “No offer of mediation btwn India and Pakistan was made by Russia to India,” Gopal Baglay, spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, said. Officials in Russian Embassy in New Delhi also stated that no such offer was made to the Pakistan government recently.

New Delhi has since long been opposing Islamabad's moves to involve a third party in resolving India-Pakistan disputes.

Baglay’s remark came shortly after media reports from the neighbouring country quoted Nafees Zakaria, spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Pakistan government, saying that Islamabad had welcomed Russian president's offer for mediating between the two South Asian neighbours.

Putin and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had a bilateral meeting on the sideline of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s summit in Astana last week. The Russian president and Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier this month had the annual bilateral summit at St Petersburg in Russia. “It is my understanding that Russia is very well aware of India's consistent position to address all outstanding issues with Pakistan bilaterally in an environment free of terrorism and violence,” Baglay told journalists in New Delhi.

Sources in the Russian Embassy in New Delhi stated that Putin and Sharif had not discussed anything about the possibility of Moscow playing the role of mediator to resolve the issues between India and Paksitan.

India has also been resisting Pakistan’s moves to raise the issue of Kashmir at the UN forums.
 

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(Published 15 June 2017, 19:29 IST)

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