Pakistan ready to talk without conditions: Sharif

India stands by agreement at Ufa

Pakistan Prime Minister M Nawaz Sharif on Friday indicated that his government is ready to restart talks with India without preconditions, but New Delhi is unlikely to resume bilateral parleys without having the preliminary engagements agreed upon by premiers of the two countries at Ufa, Russia, last July.

According to Geo News and other media organisations in Pakistan, Sharif conveyed to British Prime Minister David Cameron that Islamabad was ready to hold dialogues with New Delhi if no precondition was attached. Sharif and Cameron on Saturday had a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meet (CHOGM) in Valetta, the capital of Malta.

New Delhi has not yet officially responded to Sharif’s statement. Officials, however, told Deccan Herald that India was also ready to discuss all outstanding issues with Pakistan but Islamabad should not insist on including the issue of Kashmir in the preliminary engagements before resumption of the formal dialogue.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, who is representing Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the CHOGM, is unlikely to have any bilateral meeting with her Pakistani counterpart Sartaj Aziz, who is attending the meet, before leaving Valetta for New Delhi on Sunday. Sources pointed out that parleys between Sushma and her counterpart had not been among the engagements agreed upon in Ufa.

India is of the view that the “sequencing of events” outlined in the roadmap of engagements agreed upon by the two prime ministers during their meeting on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s summit at Ufa on July 10 should be adhered to.

Modi and Sharif had agreed that their National Security Advisors (NSAs) would meet in New Delhi to discuss all issues related to terrorism. Aziz, who was also NSA of Sharif then, was expected to meet Modi’s NSA Ajit Doval in New Delhi on August 24.

But the meeting was called off after India asked Pakistan to drop its insistence on including Kashmir in the agenda of the talks between the two NSAs and on consulting the Hurriyat Conference and other separatist organisations of Kashmir.

Aziz now only holds the position of Foreign Affairs Advisor to the Pakistan prime minister, as Sharif appointed Nasir Khan Janjua as his NSA.

The two prime ministers had also agreed in Ufa that the talks between the NSAs were to be followed by two other meetings – one between the chiefs of the Border Security Force of India and Pakistan Rangers; and another between India’s Director General Military Operations and his Pakistani counterpart to explore ways to avert ceasefire violations.