ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has said that India wants talks on normalisation of relations on its own terms and wants to discuss only matters relating to trade and connectivity, and nothing else.

Adviser to Prime Minister on National Security Sartaj Aziz, according to a Dawn.com report on Sunday, said that if Kashmir was not an issue for India why had it stationed 700,000 troops in occupied Kashmir?

Pakistan and India were to begin talks at their national security advisers’ level in Delhi on Sunday but the process collapsed at the eleventh hour amid a row over agenda and Mr Aziz’s planned meeting with Kashmiri leaders.

“India should realise after the current episode that their tactics are not working and they need to be sincere about dialogue with Pakistan,” said Mr Aziz in a TV interview.

He asked India to hold a referendum in held Kashmir to let people decide their own fate.

He regretted that the Indian government acted as if it were a regional superpower. “[Prime Minister Narendra] Modi’s India acts as if they are a regional superpower, we are a nuclear-armed country and we know how to defend ourselves,” said Mr Aziz. “We also have evidence of Indian agency RAW’s involvement in fuelling terrorism in Pakistan.”

He said that while Pakistan had evidence of Indian involvement in acts of terror, India came up with propaganda material against Pakistan.

“Propaganda against Pakistan is more important for the Indians, rather than giving us evidence,” he said.

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2015

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