LAHORE: PML-Q president Chaudhry Shujaat Husain has said aggressive attitude of India towards Pakistan should end after the recent Nawaz-Modi meeting.

“If aggressive attitude of India ends after the meeting of the prime ministers of Pakistan and India at Jati Umra, it can be termed positive,” he said in a statement here on Saturday.

Mr Shujaat said India should change its attitude, stop provocative firing across the Control Line and Working Boundary which resulted in the deaths of our jawans and civilians and stop interference, through its agencies, in Karachi, Balochistan and Fata.

About Mr Modi’s allegations against Pakistan during his visit to Kabul, the PML-Q chief said: “We should also keep in mind that strong Indo-Pakistan relations cannot be built on allegations which Modi had leveled against Pakistan in Afghanistan just two hours prior to his Lahore visit.”

He said Nawaz Sharif should also have got the Quaid-i-Azam’s birthday cake cut by Narendra Modi prior to that of his own birthday.

PPP: PPP secretary general Sardar Latif Khosa has termed the Nawaz-Modi meeting ‘positive’, saying India should carry forward the positiveness of this meeting and should not run away from talks.

Talking to Dawn, Mr Khosa said Mr Modi had come here keeping in view the situation in India. “Modi’s government was earning bad name after his party backed extremists’ attacks on minorities and worsening relations with Pakistan. In this backdrop he chose to improve ties with Pakistan and tried to give an impression of a statesman. But now the onus has been shifted to him to carry forward this ice breaking after his meeting with Nawaz Sharif in Lahore, otherwise it would turn out to be a futile exercise,” he said.

Mr Khosa further said poverty was a common enemy of both countries and they should fight it together.

He said India should now restore composite dialogue with Pakistan and resolve all outstanding issues, including Kashmir, through dialogue.

The PPP leader, however, did not agree with the foreign secretary that Modi-Nawaz meeting was “sudden”. “It was planned meeting,” he said, adding this would help defuse tension between Pakistan and India.

Published in Dawn, December 27th, 2015