Will talk only on cross border terror, India tells Pakistan

Replying to his Pakistani counterpart Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry’s fresh invitation of August 19 to visit Islamabad by the end of this month to discuss Kashmir dispute, Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar said in a letter he was willing to discuss terrorism emanating from Pakistan’s territory which was India’s core concern. According to sources, Jaishankar’s letter was handed over by Indian High Commissioner Gautam Bambawale to Chaudhry on Wednesday. 

The reply again stressed on the need for earliest possible vacation of Islamabad’s illegal occupation of Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK), they added. 

Chaudhry’s August 19 letter, second in the last ten days, invited Jaishankar to visit “Islamabad by the end of this month to discuss the Jammu & Kashmir dispute, with a view to finding a fair and just solution, as per the United Nations Security Council resolutions and aspirations” of the people of the state. 

He had first written to Jaishankar on August 15 for talks on Kashmir. Pakistan has also called for “putting an immediate end to the human rights violations against the innocent people” of Jammu and Kashmir and for providing medical facilities to the injured, “including the permission for doctors and paramedics to travel.”