New Delhi : After Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit said that the bilateral peace process with remains suspended as New Delhi does not want comprehensive talks, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday said it is upto Islamabad to show how serious it is on its commitments and specifically on the issue of combating terrorism.
“As far as the issue is concerned, after the Pathankot terrorist attack, it was the Pakistan Prime Minister who said we will ensure that action is taken and it was in that context that the JIT came here and now our team is supposed to go there on a reciprocal basis. Now it is upto Pakistan to show that how serious it is on the issue of its commitments and on the issue of combating terrorism,” BJP spokesperson Nalin Kohli told ANI here.
“India position is now being acknowledge, recognized and even appreciated. Pakistan Prime Minister has made a commitment, so if Pakistan denies from all of this, despite facing terrorist attacks in its own country then it will show that in Pakistan the old policy of good terrorist, bad terrorist continues and everyone is taking note of it,” he added.
He also said as far as the Government of Indian policy is concerned, it is very clear that the three principle under Prime Minister Narendra Modi is that all talks will be bilateral, everything should be resolved peacefully, and terror and talks won’t go together.
The Pakistan High Commissioner had yesterday said that Pakistan wants peaceful relations with India but India is not cooperating on any level.
Hinting that the NIA will not be given access to JeM chief Masood Azhar for the probe into the Pathankot attack, Basit said the dialogue with India is suspended as there are no plans for the Foreign Secretaries to meet.
Basit created a stir by stating that Pakistan’s Joint Investigation Team’s (JIT) visit to India to probe the Pathankot terror attack was not based on reciprocity – the complete opposite of what the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said.
MEA official spokesperson Vikas Swarup said, “We have seen comments by the Pakistani High Commissioner on the visit of the JIT team to investigate the terrorist attack on the Pathankot Air Base that have reference to reciprocity. The MEA would like to clarify that on 26 March, 2016, before the visit of the JIT, the Indian High Commission formally conveyed to the Pakistani Foreign Ministry that the Terms of Reference ‘are broadly agreed to with the proviso that these would be on the basis of reciprocity and followed in accordance with extant legal provisions.” (ANI)