ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: The Foreign Office said on Thursday that the All Parties Hurriyet Conference (APHC) leaders are not separatists but freedom fighters who are carrying out their movement from an occupied territory.
The statement came in response to remarks made by the Indian defence minister Arun Jaitley in which he asked Pakistan to make a “conscious” choice that whether it wants to talk to the Indian government or those who want to break India.
“We create the environment, we fix up a dialogue at the level of foreign secretaries, our foreign secretary is to visit Pakistan (and) literally a few hours before that they invite the separatists for a dialogue to their high commission (in New Delhi),” Jaitley said at the India Economic Summit in New Delhi on Wednesday.
“So I think a new red line has to be drawn in Pakistan to reconsider this question that who they want to speak to? Do they want to speak to the government of India or they want to speak to those who want to break India,” Jaitley said.
In her weekly media briefing in Islamabad on Thursday, the Foreign Office Spokesperson Tasnim Aslam said that Pakistan does not accept conditions on composite dialogues with India.
The spokesperson said that dialogue with India is not a favor but a necessity for peace and development in South Asia.
The foreign office spokesperson further said that Pakistan does not want to stop trade between India and Afghanistan through its territory.
Aslam said that Afghanistan is a landlocked country and Pakistan has given it access to the international waters. She said that India can use Karachi Port for the trade purposes.
