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Delhi hits again at Islamabad’s cost of “targeting” its non secular minorities
India and Pakistan sparred at a Commonwealth Foreign Affairs Ministerial assembly on Wednesday, after Pakistan raised the problem of Jammu and Kashmir and accused India of “targeting” its non secular minorities.
“For a state to hypocritically preach about religious minority groups elsewhere, while trampling upon the rights of its own indigenous minorities, was indeed most regrettable, and a blatant misuse of this august platform,” mentioned Secretary (West) at the Ministry of External Affairs, Vikas Swarup, in response to what he referred to as a “rant” by Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi at the Commonwealth meet, held through videoconference, though he didn’t identify Pakistan straight.
In his speech, Mr. Qureshi had additionally not named India straight however accused “a state” in South Asia of “targeting religious minority groups”. “It has transgressed rights and freedoms of millions and fanned hyper-nationalism to engineer illegal demographic change in a disputed territory,” he mentioned, in an obvious reference to the federal government’s transfer to reorganise Jammu and Kashmir and dilute Article 370 in August 2019.
Disputed territory
“The only dispute left in what it alleged today as a ‘disputed territory’ is its own illegal occupation of certain parts, which sooner or later, it would have to vacate,” Mr. Swarup replied, referring to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan. He additionally accused Pakistan of “genocide” throughout the liberation of Bangladesh and of internet hosting the biggest variety of terrorists proscribed by the United Nations.
The Commonwealth assembly is one in all a sequence of boards the place Indian and Pakistani officers have exchanged phrases in current months, together with throughout the 8-nation South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Foreign Ministers assembly and the 27-nation Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA), when Pakistan sought to carry bilateral disputes with India into multilateral talks. NSA Ajit Doval additionally walked out throughout a gathering of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation when Pakistan Special Advisor to PM Imran Khan (SAPM) Moeed Yusuf displayed a brand new map of Pakistan that includes extra Indian territory in it.
The newest alternate between the 2 nations comes two days after Mr. Yusuf claimed that India had despatched a “message” to Pakistan earlier this yr, exploring the potential for a “conversation”, and set what he referred to as Pakistan’s phrases for any bilateral engagement.
“We have got a message for a desire for conversation,” Mr. Moeed Yusuf mentioned in an interview to The Wire information portal however refused to offer additional particulars, saying Pakistan wished to speak to India about Jammu and Kashmir and terrorism.
The Ministry of External Affairs declined to touch upon Mr. Yusuf’s declare however is anticipated to challenge a full assertion in response on Thursday.
No talks have been held between the nations since Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Lahore to meet former Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif in December 2015, and the federal government has maintained that Pakistan should finish cross-border terrorism earlier than talks will be held.
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