Islamabad, November 25

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif adviser on foreign affairs told the country’s parliament on Friday that it was willing to hold peace talks with India but only Kashmir was part of the agenda.

Sartaj Aziz, who is scheduled to visit India next week for the Heart of Asia conference that will be held in Amritsar, told the National Assembly during a debate on cross-border shelling between the two countries that Pakistan “would not accept any Indian influence or hegemony”.

“We are ready for dialogue with India on the condition that Kashmir dispute is also included in it,” he said, claiming Pakistan remained firm on bringing up the dispute at international forums.

“Pakistan will continue to support the Kashmiris right to self-determination which is totally indigenous and led by the Kashmiri youth,” he said. “We will continue extending political, diplomatic and moral support to them (Kashmiris) on international and bilateral forums.”

He also said Pakistan would respond to what it calls “truce violations by India, which Aziz claimed was “diversionary tactic” to take the world’s attention away from “atrocities” in Kashmir.

He also said Pakistan had written letters to foreign ministers of P-5 countries to bring their “attention to Indian aggression” on its civilians.

Defence Minister Khawaja Asif claimed that India could not afford to let Kashmir’s freedom struggle “reach its successful end”.

“If the Kashmir movement reaches its logical conclusion, the other movements there will also achieve success. This will be the undoing of Indian state,” he said, as he accused the neighbour of supporting terrorism in Pakistan.

“We have unambiguous evidence about Indian interference in our territory and dossiers in this regard have been presented before the world community,” he said.

Pakistan and India have accused each other of truce violations and deliberately targeting civilians in the cross-border shelling that have escalated since India conducted a military strike on terrorist launch pads in Pakistan’s territory in September. The strike came 10 days after some militants struck an army camp in north Kashmir’s Uri. — PTI