India, Pakistan NSA talks called off?
Both countries do not want talks, but there’s nothing official about it
New Delhi/Islamabad: Just hours after Pakistan rejected India’s “advice” to abandon plans of a meeting between Pakistan NSA Sartaj Aziz and Hurriyat leaders in New Delhi, prospects for scheduled NSA talks on Monday between India and Pakistan seem bleak, with India lashing out at Pakistan and saying that “unilateral imposition of new conditions and distortion of the agreed agenda cannot be
the basis for going forward”.
New Delhi has realised that Islamabad will rake up the Kashmir issue in a major way at the NSA talks and sees it as an unacceptable departure from the agreement at Ufa, Russia, where the talks were agreed to be on terror.
Top government sources said the Modi government has decided not to allow any meeting between Hurriyat leaders and Mr Aziz and the Hurriyat leaders may be detained in New Delhi if they arrive for any such meeting.
Late on Friday evening there seemed to be another provocation by Islamabad with news agency reports claiming that Pakistan had decided that hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani would be meeting Mr Aziz at 9.30 am on Monday at New Delhi, ahead of the talks between the two NSAs.