Pak PM says want ‘meaningful dialogue’ with India on all outstanding issues

Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has said that he wants to hold a dialogue with India to address all outstanding issues, including water, Jammu and Kashmir, trade, and terrorism. He expressed his wish during a telephonic conversation with the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Tuesday. “Pakistan is ready to engage in a meaningful dialogue with India on all outstanding issues, including Jammu and Kashmir, water, trade and terrorism,” he was quoted as saying by Radio Pakistan.
In fact, Sharif last month also expressed his willingness to hold peace talks with India to resolve all outstanding issues while visiting Iran and Azerbaijan.

Sharif also expressed Pakistan’s support for the immediate de-escalation of tensions between Iran and Israel and called for a peaceful resolution through diplomatic means.

India, however, maintains that it can have talks with Pakistan only on the issue of terrorism and the return of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

Sharif’s remark came weeks after India put the 1960 Indus Water Treaty (IWT) in abeyance and stopped all trade with Islamabad after Pakistan-based terrorists killed 26 civilians in Pahalgam, a picturesque tourist place in Jammu and Kashmir, on April 22.

On May 7, India destroyed terrorist bases in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir under Operation Sindoor, and then targeted Pakistan’s air bases and rendered them useless after Islamabad decided to retaliate by attacking Indian civilian areas and military installations.

India has also stopped all forms of trade with Pakistan in the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack and closed its airspace for all Pakistani aircraft.

External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal also said that the Indus Water Treaty will remain in abeyance till the time Pakistan credibly and irrevocably abjures its support to cross-border terrorism “just like Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, ‘terror and talks cannot go together, terror and trade cannot go together, and water and blood cannot flow together’.”