Islamabad: Pakistan Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Monday said India is unleashing baseless propaganda against the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
"India wanted to divert attention over its (alleged) atrocities in occupied Kashmir through false allegations about Pakistan's support to indigenous Kashmiri struggle for freedom," Radio Pakistan quoted Abbasi, as saying.
He asserted that prime ministerial-level talks can only be held after India ends alleged rights violations in Kashmir, implement U.N. resolutions, end Line of Control (LoC) violations and budge from its Cold War doctrine.
Abbasi dismissed US Defense Secretary James Mattis' statement over CPEC, saying the United Nations should ensure implementation of Security Council resolutions on Kashmir.
Pakistan's Foreign Office has already dismissed Washington's concerns over CPEC, saying the project is for the betterment of the region and beyond.
The Foreign Office was responding to Mattis telling the Senate Armed Services Committee that the One Belt, One Road goes through disputed territory and that it itself shows the vulnerability of trying to establish that sort of a dictate.
On October 7, China cautioned the Trump administration about CPEC, citing that its OBOR initiative was not directed against third parties.
"We have repeatedly said that the CPEC is an economic cooperation initiative that is not directed against third parties and has nothing to do with territorial sovereignty disputes and does not affect China's principled stance on the Kashmir issue," the Chinese Foreign Ministry said, in a statement.
Mattis also said that in a globalised world, there are many belts and many roads and no one nation should put itself into a position of dictating the 'One Belt, One Road'.
China came up with its One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative in 2013.
The CPEC project comprises a network of railways, roads and pipelines that would connect Pakistan's port city of Gwadar in the province of Balochistan, with the Chinese city of Kashgar in landlocked Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR).
Human rights activists have time and again spoken about and highlighted growing atrocities in Pakistan and particularly on the indigenous people of Balochistan as a result of the CPEC.
