New Delhi: Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Monday said his country is ready to host the 19th SAARC summit and India can virtually attend if the leadership in New Delhi is not ready to visit Islamabad.
Addressing a press conference to highlight the achievements of the Ministry of External Affairs in 2021, Qureshi accused India of deactivating SAARC through its insistence by refusing to come to Islamabad for the summit.
He said, “I repeat the invitation to the 19th SAARC summit. If India is not ready to come to Islamabad, it can virtually attend it but it should not prevent others from attending this meeting.”
SAARC – a regional grouping of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka – has not been very dominant since 2016 and has not had a biennial summit since the last one in Kathmandu in 2014.
The 2016 SAARC Summit was originally planned to be held in Islamabad on 15–19 November 2016. But after a terrorist attack on an Indian Army camp in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir on 18 September that year, India expressed its inability to participate. Summit due to “existing conditions”.
The summit was called off after Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan also refused to participate in the Islamabad meeting.
Noting that there was no change in relations with India in 2021, Qureshi cited the perceived dominance of Hindutva thinking in India to sabotage the prospects of good relations between the two countries.
Unfortunately, relations with India were frozen in 2021. In our view, aggressive Hindutva behavior in recent years has affected the prospects for regional cooperation.”
He said that Pakistan wants peaceful relations with all its neighbours, including India, but the onus is on India to improve relations.
Qureshi said that peace with India is not possible without resolving the Kashmir issue.
Bilateral relations deteriorated after India withdrew the special powers of Jammu and Kashmir and bifurcated the state into two union territories in August, 2019.
India has told Pakistan that it wants normal neighborly relations with Islamabad in an environment free from terror, hostility and violence.
Qureshi spoke at length on Pakistan’s relations with the rest of the world and concluded by saying that political, economic and diplomatic relations with the whole world including the US, Russia and China improved in the last year.
Qureshi specifically mentioned that relations with Bangladesh are improving and Prime Minister Imran Khan has held talks with his Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina.
He said Khan invited Hasina to visit Pakistan and he also invited her to visit Bangladesh.
Asked about the alleged cold war between China and the US, he said Pakistan’s policy was clear and Islamabad would not be a part of any camp.
Responding to another question on removal of fence by Taliban forces along the border, he said that Pakistan did the fencing and was aware of the latest developments (of removing it), while Afghanistan is our friend and we will be able to solve it. This.
Qureshi’s remarks on the SAARC summit came last month after Pakistan Prime Minister Khan expressed hope that his country would host the much-delayed meeting when the “artificial barrier” created in its path is removed.
Khan made the remarks during his meeting with Secretary General of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Esala Ruwan Weerakoon, who paid a courtesy call on the Prime Minister here.
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