Pakistan continues to live in a parallel world where its Prime Minister Imran Khan Niazi is the leader of the Islamic world and the country a regional superpower which exerts its will on India at its whim and fancy. In an interview, adviser to Imran Khan and Pakistan’s NSA, Moeed Yusuf claimed that not only has India reached out to Pakistan but the latter has also set preconditions for talks which India needs to accept if it wants Pakistan to hold talks with the country. It seems that Yusuf’s statements were met with unbridled laughter in Delhi’s power circles as India gave a much needed wake up call to Pakistan.
In a recent interview, Imran Khan’s top security adviser Moeed Yusuf claimed that India had sent a quiet message that reflected what he called, “a desire for conversation”.
While a formal response from the Ministry of External Affairs will be released soon, a top government functionary told Hindustan Times on condition of anonymity said that Yusuf’s statements are a work of “fiction”.
India’s position on having talks with Pakistan hasn’t changed as New Delhi has made it clear that talks and terror cannot go hand in hand and Islamabad will have to stop funding terrorists and ensure it crackdowns on them. However, Pakistan with its inherent hate for India will never stop funding terrorists whose sole aim is to make India bleed.
Another senior official said that in the absence of a conducive environment India holding talks with Pakistan is “mischievous but also a pipe dream”.
Laughably, Yusuf, as if living in a parallel world, during the interview set conditions for India which the country needs to follow for Pakistan to agree on having talks with the country. Yusuf claimed that Pakistan was lukewarm to India’s proposal and laid out four conditions for India which it must fulfil.
Unsurprisingly, one of the conditions was to roll back the abrogation of Article 370 and hence restore Jammu and Kashmir’s special status and release of ‘political prisoners’ in the Kashmir valley. It is pertinent to note that Islamabad doesn’t know the difference between political prisoners and terrorists as Pakistan has often described terrorists as political prisoners.
Yusuf’s claims are nothing but an obfuscation of the ground reality as he shockingly also linked India to dastardly terrorist attack on a Peshawar school in 2014 which killed over 130 children. Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, backed by Pak’s deep state had earlier claimed responsibility for the attack.
Imran Khan’s foreign policy is in shambles, he was ‘selected’ on an anti-India plank, with a pledge to drumbeat about Kashmir at the first opportunity available. While Khan has continued to whine and cry crocodile tears over Kashmir at almost every international forum, India has successfully managed to diplomatically isolate Pakistan with only China and Turkey agreeing to do its bidding.