NEW DELHI: Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday asserted that the Army and political leadership in Islamabad were on the same page on improving ties with India.
“I am telling you, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, the ruling party, other political parties and (Pakistan’s) armed forces are on one page…We want to move ahead. We want a civilised relationship with India.
“Both India and Pakistan are nuclear armed. There cannot be a war. Thinking of war is madness, thinking of winning is also madness as both will lose. Only a foolish individual can think one can win a nuclear war. There is no other option except friendship,” Khan said.
Khan, occasion of ground-breaking ceremony for the long-awaited Kartarpur Corridor to reset his country’s troubled ties with India, made a strong pitch for better ties between the two nuclear-armed states and that friendship was the only option.
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Referring to the strained relations between the two countries, he said a lot of mistakes have been made in the past by both the sides and said “the past is for learning lessons”.
“Today, where India and Pakistan stand, it has been going on for the last 70 years. Till the time we break the barriers of the past, blame game and point scoring will continue. We take one step forward and go back two steps. We have not displayed firmness to improve our relationship.”
However, Khan raked up the Kashmir issue saying that it was the only festering problem between the two countries and even that can be solved with “boldness and decisiveness” of political leadership.
The gurdwara, which fell in Pakistan territory following the Partition of India in 1947, has huge significance in Sikhism and Sikh history.
For the past over 71 years, ever since Partition, Sikhs have been offering prayers near the international border while seeing the gurdwara from a distance.