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Choose India or Kashmiri leaders, Jaitley tells Pakistan
Indian defence minister says his country ‘ready’ to speak to Pakistan, ‘willing’ to ‘normalise’ relationship
INP
NEW DELHI – India's Defence Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday said that Pakistan must make a ‘conscious choice of peace’ and decide whether it wants to talk to the Indian government or the Hurriyat leaders of the disputed state of Jammu Kashmir.
Addressing India Economic Summit here, he said that India was ‘ready’ to speak to Pakistan and was ‘willing’ to ‘normalise’ relationship but then there were a few red lines. “We create the environment, we fix up a dialogue at the level of foreign secretaries, our foreign secretary is to visit Pakistan (and) literally a few hours before that they invite the Kashmiri leaders for a dialogue to their high commission in New Delhi,” he said.
“So I think a new red line has to be drawn in Pakistan to reconsider this question that who they want to speak? Do they want to speak to the government of India or they want to speak to those who want to ‘break’ India,” he said. “So unless Pakistan makes the ‘conscious’ choice, a dialogue with Pakistan will not be possible,” he said.
In August, India called off scheduled secretary-level talks after Pakistan's High Commissioner Abdul Basit met Hurriyat leaders on the eve of the dialogue. Referring to ceasefire violations on the Line of Control, he said that the consequences of ‘misadventure’ like firing would be an unaffordable cost for Pakistan.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk