Pakistan open, ‘not desperate’ for talks with India: Dar

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is “ready but not desperate” for talks with arch-rival India, its foreign minister said on Wednesday, in remarks that underline the lack of a thaw between the two nuclear-armed neighbours following their worst military conflict in decades.

Both sides used fighter jets, missiles, drones and artillery last month in four days of clashes, their worst fighting in decades, before agreeing to a US-brokered ceasefire on May 10.

“Whenever they ask for a dialogue, at whatever level, we are ready but we are not desperate,” Minister Ishaq Dar told a news conference in Islamabad.

The spark for the recent fighting between the old enemies was an April 22 attack in Indian Kashmir that killed 26 people, most of them tourists. New Delhi blamed the incident on “terrorists” backed by Pakistan, a charge denied by Islamabad.

Dar said Pakistan wanted a comprehensive dialogue on a range of issues including water, whereas India wanted to focus only on terrorism.

“That’s not on. Nobody else is more serious than us. It takes two to tango,” he said, referring to comments by Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar that the talks should only cover the issue of terrorism.

The Indian foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Dar’s remarks.

New Delhi has previously said that terrorism and dialogue cannot go hand in hand.

Pakistan is keen to discuss water rights after India suspended the Indus Waters Treaty following the April 22 attack.

The treaty guarantees water for 80 per cent of Pakistan’s farms from three rivers that flow from India.

DESIRE FOR PEACE

Earlier, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has on multiple occasions offered to hold dialogue with India in case New Delhi was serious, while making it clear that Pakistan was ready to thwart any Indian aggression.

On Monday, Shehbaz had stated that Islamabad was ready to hold Pakistan-India talks with a four-point agenda in mind – Kashmir, water, trade and terrorism.

At the same time, Pakistan is fighting the Indian proxies, operating in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.