New Delhi: Foreign ministers of India and Pakistan will meet on sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, the government announced on Thursday. India agreed to Swaraj-Qureshi meeting following a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi by his Pakistani counterpart Imran Khan seeking a ministerial interaction on the sidelines of the UNGA.
Announcing the meeting between external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj with her Pakistani counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi, MEA Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar, however, made it clear it is not a resumption of the Indo-Pak dialogue and India agreed to the meeting following a request from Pakistan. He also insisted the decision doesn’t change the country’s position on cross-border terrorism. During the meeting, which is likely to take place next week, India is expected to strongly raise the issue of terrorism emanating from the Pakistani soil.
The Swaraj-Qureshi meeting will be the first engagement at this level since January 2016 when New Delhi halted the dialogue with Islamabad in the aftermath of Pathankot terror attack, for which India holds Pakistan-based groups responsible. Indo-Pak ties have nose-dived since then in view of a number of terror strikes by Pakistan-based groups, which India retaliated by carrying out ‘surgical strikes’ in September 2016 across the LoC. India has been maintaining that terror and talks cannot go together.
Foreign ministers of India and Pakistan will meet on sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, the government announced on Thursday, the first such high-level engagement since suspension of dialogue between the two nations after the Pathankot air base terror attack in 2016.
“I must distinguish between a meeting and dialogue. This does not indicate any change in policy as far as our stand on terrorism and cross-border terrorism is concerned,” the MEA spokesperson said at a media briefing. The last meeting between the two foreign ministers was held during Swaraj’s visit to Islamabad in December 2015 to attend the Heart of Asia Summit.
