Pak's demand on Article 370 won't help create conducive atmosphere for talks: India tells UAE

Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi told journalists in Dubai on Sunday that Pakistan was ready to hold talks with India if the Modi government roll back its August 5, 2019 decision

Pakistan’s rhetoric asking India to roll back its August 5, 2019 decision on Jammu and Kashmir will not help to create conducive atmosphere for restarting talks between the two nations, New Delhi has conveyed to the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

With Abu Dhabi playing a behind-the-scenes role to mediate between the two nations, India informally conveyed to the UAE that Pakistan must reconcile with the fact that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government would never roll back its decision to strip J&K of its special status and to reorganise the state into two Union Territories, sources told DH.

New Delhi’s position on the issue has been clearly conveyed to the UAE, when External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar had a meeting with Emirati Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi on Sunday.

Jaishankar and Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi visited Abu Dhabi recently. Their visit to the UAE around the same time lent credence to speculation over Abu Dhabi’s behind-the-scenes efforts to mediate between the two South Asian nations and bring them back on the table of negotiation.

Qureshi formally acknowledged during an interview with Gulf News that the UAE was informally facilitating back-channel talks between Islamabad and New Delhi. Jaishankar, however, refrained from making any comment on the UAE’s mediation between India and Pakistan. The Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi too remained tight-lipped on the issue.

Jaishankar and Qureshi had separate meetings with Sheikh Abdullah in Abu Dhabi on Sunday and Monday respectively.

Qureshi told journalists in Dubai on Sunday that Pakistan was ready to hold talks with India if the Modi government roll back its August 5, 2019 decision. Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan too had earlier this month stated that Islamabad would not hold talks with New Delhi unless the Government of India restored the special status of J&K.

India, however, firmly rejected the condition set by Pakistan for resumption of bilateral talks, which remained suspended since January 2013.

New Delhi informally conveyed to Islamabad through the UAE that the Modi government’s decision to withdraw the special status granted to J&K under Article 370 of the Constitution was endorsed by Parliament of India and was irreversible. India also stressed that the UAE might advise Pakistan that such rhetoric would neither help to create mobilize public opinion in favour of resumption of talks between the two South Asian neighbours nor would create conducive atmosphere for such engagements, sources told DH in New Delhi.