Pakistan PM Imran Khan writes to PM Modi; says creation of 'enabling environment' imperative for dialogue

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has written to Narendra Modi, saying that "durable peace" in South Asia is "contingent upon resolving all outstanding issues between the two neighbouring countries, in particular, the issue of Jammu and Kashmir".

Thanking the Indian Prime Minister for the letter he had received on the occasion of Pakistan Day on March 23, Khan noted that Pakistan wanted peaceful relations with all its neighbours, including India.

Modi had written to Khan that India desired cordial relations with Pakistan. He had, however, stressed the importance of creating an environment of trust, devoid of terror and hostility, for cordial relations between the two neighbouring nations.

“Creation of an enabling environment between the two countries is imperative for a constructive and result-oriented dialogue,” Khan wrote to Modi on Monday.

The two Prime Ministers exchanged letters amid speculation about the possibility of the two nations restarting formal bilateral dialogue.

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New Delhi had suspended formal bilateral talks with Islamabad in January 2013 after Pakistan Army personnel killed two Indian Army soldiers along the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K).

Though the Modi government in December 2015 agreed to restart the dialogue, the process was derailed by attacks on the IAF base at Pathankot in Punjab and on the Indian Army’s brigade headquarters at Uri in J&K by terrorist outfits based in Pakistan.

The Indian Army’s “surgical strike” on terrorist camps in Pakistan in September 2016, the terror attack on Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel at Pulwama in J&K and the retaliatory bombing by the Indian Air Force (IAF) aircraft on the terror camps in the neighbouring country in February 2019 worsened the relations between the two nations.

But when the armed forces of the two nations on February 25 agreed to stop firing across the Line of Control and strictly adhere to the 2003 ceasefire agreement, it fuelled speculation about the possibility of restarting the stalled bilateral dialogue.

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The United Arab Emirates purportedly played a behind-the-scenes role in making the Indian Army and the Pakistan Army agree to de-escalate tension along the Line of Control (LoC).

Khan on March 17 said that the Modi government in New Delhi would have to first make the move to restart the stalled bilateral dialogue. The chief of Pakistan Army, Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa, on March 18 said that it was time for both nations to bury the past and move forward.

India, however, put the onus back on Pakistan to create a conducive atmosphere for the resumption of the bilateral dialogue.