DUSHANBE: Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi is happy with the outcome of the Heart of Asia conference.
“Agreement on ceasefire, PM Modi’s letter to PM Imran Khan and India not slamming Pakistan on Heart of Asia summit, I would consider it a positive move,” Foreign Minister Qureshi told media after the HoA conference in Tajikistan capital Dushanbe on Tuesday.
He said there is a thaw as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote to Prime Minister Imran Khan and wished him and the people of Pakistan on its National Day and premier Imran sent him a letter of thanks.
In his letter, PM Imran has thanked PM Modi and expressed Pakistan’s desire to have better relations with its neighbours and live peacefully, Qureshi told the media.
He said the need of the hour is to resolve all outstanding issues and the most important is the issue of Jammu and Kashmir. “The steps that it (India) took on 5th August, Pakistan believes it further complicated things and not solved them. And there’s a section in India that believes that India through such steps lost a lot in Kashmir and gained nothing.”
Qureshi said if India wants to move forward with Pakistan, it would have to create a conducive environment and for that take some steps to create an enabling environment.
Pakistan has never shied away from talks. “We believe that dialogue is the only way forward. There are two nuclear powers, who cannot indulge in the stupidity of war, this would be suicidal. So when there’s no other solution, no military solution then what’s the way forward except dialogues.”
Replying to a question, Foreign Minister Qureshi said he listened carefully speech of the Indian foreign minister. He did not say anything negative about Pakistan – which he usually did in the past.
Foreign Minister Qureshi said that he did not meet his Indian counterpart S Jaishankar in Dushanbe neither he received any request for a meeting.
He said: “We haven’t met, have no talks and no pull-aside meeting happened that you (media) were watching closely. I didn’t receive any request from him, neither did we and moreover, we didn’t have any schedule of meeting either, he was busy on his programme and I was also engaged with my prior schedule, so we couldn’t meet bilaterally.”
Qureshi, however, said he is happy that “we have come to the understanding of 2003 ceasefire agreement on Line of Control (LoC) which is a welcome move and Kashmiris also expressed happiness.”
