No backchannel diplomacy with India: Hina Rabbani Khar

Islamabad: Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar on Thursday told the Senate that there was no backchannel diplomacy going on with India.

Responding to a supplementary question of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s Senator Faisal Javed at the floor of the upper house of the parliament, she said since the government had come into power, there was no backchannel diplomacy going on between Pakistan and India.

Hina made it clear that if backchannel diplomacy was result oriented, it should be done.

She said the messages, being received from India, were all conflagratory that was why; there were no talks on any kind of trade between the two neighboring countries.

She expressed the possibly of talks if there was any opportunity and India comes to Pakistan’s demand. “It is duty of the politicians to do right things instead of coming in the way of diplomacy,” she maintained.

Balochistan Awami Paty’s Senator Danesh Kumar, appreciating the Kartarpur Corridor, said there was Hinglaj Mata temple in Balochistan which was almost five thousand years old adding that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was also its worshiper.

He expressed the hope that if this archeological site was promoted for religious tourism between Pakistan and India, it would have good impact on the social condition of the people of this coastal area.

He asked the minister for taking any peace-building initiative for this ancient religious temple like the Kartarpur Corridor.

Terming Kartarpur Corridor a good precedence, Hina said this was obviously a positive suggestion and Pakistan had always played frontman role in the execution of such peace-building projects and it would keep on doing so.

She said absolutely, there was no harm in looking in detail this specific proposal and Pakistan should continue to project such things.

She said currently, the hostility was coming from other side of the border which was due to a hostile government over there. Pakistan was asked to normalize its relations with India on the international forums time and again.

“To them our response is that they should look at the messages we have received from India,” she added.

The minister said banning the BBC documentary in India put a big question mark on its credibility it professed of being the biggest democracy of the world.

She was of the view that the border should remain peaceful as “it is our intention to continue to engage with India at whatever platform required.”

Pakistan was the country which had always learned from its history and it did not believe in generating more dead bodies on certain conflicts because more bloodshed was not in the interest of this region, she added.

The minister mentioned that Director Generals of Military Operation of both sides reached an agreement of ceasefire adding that before entering into this understanding, the two countries had a ceasefire understanding in 2003 but India did not respect the accord and violated it 13,500 times leading to the death of 310 citizens and injuring at least 1,600.

She further said the latest agreement had substantially decreased cross-border incidents and expressed the hope that despite of all that Pakistan would continue the ‘journey to peace’.