Pakistan has been raking the international community over the modification in Article 370 which scraps the special status provided to the state of Jammu and Kashmir and reduces it into a union territory. India has maintained it is its internal matter

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has said that Pakistan openly practices terrorism and there is no scope for negotiations until Islamabad stops financing and recruitment of militant groups. Jaishankar, in an interview with POLITICO, was responding to questions on an op-ed written by Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan

Khan in his New York Times column had said that it was urgent to begin discussions while a “nuclear shadow” hovers over South Asia. Responding to the call, Jaishankar said that the idea was a nonstarter while Pakistan “openly practices terrorism”.

“Terrorism is not something that is being conducted in dark corners of Pakistan. It’s done in broad daylight,” Jaishankar was quoted as saying. The relations between the two countries have been at an all-time low since the Pulwama attack in which 40 CRPF personnel were killed following which India launched an airstrike deep inside Pakistan and attacked terror camps

Responding to the situation in Kashmir, the minister said the security restrictions across the Valley would be eased in the “coming days”. He said the internet and telephone outages were needed to stop the activation of “terrorist assets” and to prevent “people who are doing violence to contact each others.

“How do I cut off communications between the terrorists and their masters on the one hand, but keep the internet open for other people? I would be delighted to know,” Jaishankar said. “I would suggest to you that in the coming days you will see an easing up progressively,” he said.

Pakistan has been trying to raise the issue at various international fora, but India has maintained that it is an internal matter and has asked Islamabad to accept the reality.

Meanwhile, talking about India’s relations with US President Donald Trump, Jaishankar broached the challenges posed by a potential tariff war, India’s interest in resuming purchases of Iranian oil and US reservations about India’s acquisition of S-400 of surface-to-air missiles. Discussing Trump’s increasingly hard stance on Indian tariffs, the minister said, “Like any relationship, there’s give and take…Our expectation is that our trade ministers will sit down in the near future. I think many of these issues are eminently [open] to resolution.

On arms’ purchases from Russia, Jaishankar said he was not going to be deterred from a “solid, time-tested” relationship with Moscow, the report said. “We would not accept any country telling us who to buy weapons from and who not to buy from,” he was quoted as saying in the report.

Courtesy: Indian Express: 2nd September, 2019