Pakistan Urges India For Broader Dialogue On Terrorism Apart From Kashmir - Army

ISLAMABAD (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 24th March, 2019) SLAMABAD, March 24 (Sputnik), Valentina Shvartsman - Pakistan has been calling on ISLAMABAD (Pakistan Point news / Sputnik - 24th March, 2019) ndia to have a broader dialogue on terrorism rather than addressing solely the Kashmir issue, but the ISLAMABAD (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 24th March, 2019) ndian side rejects these attempts, spokesman for the Pakistani Army Maj. Gen. Asif Ghafoor told Sputnik in an interview.

"Whenever we offer India to form dialogue we say that we want to discuss terrorism. But the problem is that India terms just the freedom movement in occupied Jammu and Kashmir as act of terrorism. We see that terrorism is a regional issue. It has to be discussed what happens in Iran, what happens in Afghanistan, what happens in Pakistan ... But India links it only to the occupied Jammu and Kashmir only," Ghafoor said.

He stressed that Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has lately offered India once again to sit at negotiating table to address these problems, but have not received any reply. The spokesman also noted that the two countries were having weekly military-to-military contacts, but it was enough to resolve the old grievances.

"There are officers from both the military operational directorates, which talk, and we directly discuss certain routine matters of coordination. But the Kashmir issue cannot be resolved through these telephone conversations," Ghafoor said.

Tensions between India and Pakistan escalated last month, after the Pakistani military shot down two Indian warplanes in the disputed region of Kashmir, responding to an earlier airstrike by Indian aircraft against what New Delhi said was a camp of Jaish-e-Mohammad group, considered terrorists by India and located on the Pakistani soil across the so-called Line of Control, separating India- and Pakistan- controlled areas of Kashmir.

The Indian airstrike came after a deadly attack by Jaish-e-Mohammad on the Indian paramilitary police force in Kashmir in mid-February. While India has accused Pakistan of supporting the militants and having a "direct hand" in the incident, Pakistan, in turn, has rejected the allegations.