Jaishankar travelled to Islamabad on Tuesday for an almost 24-hour journey to attend the conclave of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), changing into the primary Indian international minister to visit Pakistan within the final 9 years amid persevering with pressure in ties.
India and Pakistan ought to “bury” the previous and stay up for stay like good neighbours, former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif stated on Thursday, describing the Indian international minister’s journey to Islamabad this week to attend a conclave of the SCO bloc as an “opening”.
In an interplay with a gaggle of Indian journalists, the three-time former prime minister and president of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (N) stated he was not proud of the “long pause” within the ties and hoped that each side would look forward with a optimistic strategy.
Jaishankar travelled to Islamabad on Tuesday for an almost 24-hour journey to attend the conclave of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), changing into the primary Indian international minister to visit Pakistan within the final 9 years amid persevering with pressure in ties.
“This is how things should go ahead. We would have liked PM Modi to come but it was good that the Indian foreign minister came. I have said before that we must pick up the threads of our conversation,” stated Sharif, the elder brother of Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
“We have spent 70 years in this way (fighting) and we should not let this go on for the next 70 years… Both sides should sit down and discuss how to go forward,” he stated. “We can’t change our neighbours, neither can Pakistan nor can India. We should live like good neighbours.”
There was no bilateral assembly between the Indian and Pakistani international ministers on the sidelines of the SCO conclave. For New Delhi, the journey was to attend the multilateral assembly.
However, some senior functionaries within the Pakistani institution are projecting the Indian minister’s visit as an “ice-breaker”.
Following a sequence of terror assaults on India by Pakistan-based terror teams in 2016, New Delhi determined to not maintain any bilateral dialogue with Islamabad saying talks and terror cannot go hand-in-hand.
Sharif described Jaishankar’s journey to Islamabad as an “opening” and a optimistic step.
When requested whether or not a bridge builder between the 2 nations was required, he stated, “that is the role I am trying to play.”
“We should not go to the past and should look at the future. It would be better if we bury the past so that we can use the potential between the two countries,” Sharif stated.
“I think it (Jaishankar’s visit) is an opening and it must be taken forward,” he stated.
Sharif additionally recalled Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s shock stopover in Lahore on December 25, 2015, on his approach again from Kabul.
“It was very kind of PM Modi-ji to visit Pakistan. He came and met my mother. These are not small gestures, they mean something to us, especially in our countries. We should not overlook them,” he stated.
Sharif held former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan for deterioration in relations between the 2 nations and particularly referred to sure feedback made by the cricketer-turned-politician towards Prime Minister Modi.
“Imran Khan used words that destroyed the relationship – as leaders of the two countries and neighbours, we should not even think, let alone utter such words,” he stated.
In his remarks, the previous prime minister additionally pitched for the resumption of cricketing ties between India and Pakistan and even stated that he wish to journey to India if the 2 groups play within the ultimate of any main event within the neighbouring nation.
“What do we gain by not sending teams to each other’s countries? They play all over the world, but it is not allowed in our two countries,” he stated.
When requested if India ought to ship a workforce for the Champion’s trophy to be held in Pakistan in February, he stated, “you have spoken what’s in my heart.”
Sharif additionally underlined the significance of getting commerce ties between the 2 sides.
“Maybe my thinking is different from others, but I believe we are a potential market for each other. Why should Indian and Pakistani farmers and manufacturers go outside to sell their products,” he stated.
“Goods now go from Amritsar to Lahore via Dubai- what are we doing, who is benefitting from this? What should take two hours now takes two weeks,” he stated.
The ties between India and Pakistan got here below extreme pressure after India’s warplanes pounded a Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist coaching camp in Balakot in Pakistan in February 2019 in response to the Pulwama terror assault.
The relations additional deteriorated after India on August 5, 2019, introduced the withdrawal of particular powers of Jammu and Kashmir and the bifurcation of the state into two union territories.
The commerce ties between Islamabad and New Delhi have remained suspended since 2019 as a result of imposition of heavy duties by New Delhi on imports from Pakistan after the 2019 Pulwama assault”.
(This story has not been edited by DNA workers and is revealed from PTI)
