ISLAMABAD – Indian Prime Minister will not visit Pakistan later this year if New Delhi was not satisfied with the Pathankot investigations and results, official sources said citing back-channel communication.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s Special Assistant on Foreign Affairs Tariq Fatemi said this week Prime Minister Modi was expected to visit Islamabad in November for the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit.
Dates for the upcoming SAARC summit in Islamabad were being worked out in consultation with member states. Pakistan had proposed to host the 19th SAARC Summit in Islamabad in November 2016.
Fatemi said a five-member Joint Investigation Team formed to probe the January 2 attack on Pathankot airbase would complete its job within days.
The Punjab provincial government had formed the JIT last week to investigate the Pathankot airbase attack case – registered in Gujranwala.
Official sources said another meeting between Prime Ministers Sharif and Modi could not be ruled out in the coming weeks in the United States on the sidelines of the Nuclear Security Summit.
A senior government official told The Nation, India wanted desired results on the Pathankot incident and had linked Modi’s visit to the ‘positive investigations.’
“Pakistan has assured them there will be fair investigations and anybody found involved will not go unpunished but obviously we cannot implicate people to please them,” he added.
The official said Islamabad wanted New Delhi to build trust and shun its defiance which has resulted in ever tense ties and wars in the past.
“When India accepts no Pakistani state actor was involved in any terror act in India, it should also show confidence in us. We don’t want anybody to carry terrorism in neighbouring countries,” he maintained.
Another official said the Indian premier’s visit would be a morale booster and should not be linked to other events. He said much before November, Pakistan would have gone past the Pathankot incident.
“We have told them we are seriously investigating the attack. But the hints by the Indians that Modi would only visit if Pakistan showed good results on Pathankot is a difficult condition. We know they will only be satisfied if we hang all the people they want or hand them over to them. Nothing less will be ‘positive’ for them,” he remarked.
Already, Pakistan has told India Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar cannot be named in the Pathankot case unless New Delhi provided compelling evidence of his involvement. The First Information Report over the Pathankot attack does not name Masood Azhar or the JeM – who India accused of masterminding the strike. It was registered against unknown suspects.
India said the filing of the FIR was a ‘step forward’ but it was ‘disappointed’ neither the JeM nor its chief were named.
Analyst Dr Khurram Iqbal said Pakistan had always supported bilateral visits and people-to-people contacts. He said top level visits must not be linked to issues as these openings were helpful in resolving the disputes.
AFP adds: India Tuesday linked the Pakistan government to a militant attack on an airbase that killed seven soldiers in January.
India had previously blamed Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) for the assault on Pathankot airbase in the northern state of Punjab.
But on Tuesday New Delhi said the militants could not have carried out the brazen attack on the airbase near the Pakistan border without Islamabad’s support.
“Pakistan’s non-state actors were definitely behind the attack. Also, no non-state actor from there (Pakistan) can function smoothly without the state’s support,” Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar told parliament.
“The entire details of the attack will only come out in the National Investigation Agency (NIA) investigation,” he said.
The NIA, a federal police unit that investigates terror offences, is carrying out a probe into the case.
The rare targeting of an Indian military installation outside the disputed region of Kashmir came days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s surprise visit to Pakistan in December.
It led to the postponement of peace talks planned between the nuclear-armed arch-rivals, with Modi urging his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif to take “firm and immediate action”.
The foreign secretaries of the two countries had been scheduled to meet in January. No fresh date has been announced. http://nation.com.pk/E-Paper/Lahore/2016-03-02/page-1/detail-3
Comments are closed.