Talks only viable option to 'avoid war' with Pakistan: India’s top opposition leader

We have to live with Pakistan forever and ever, says P Chidambaram

A top leader of the main opposition party in India has said that there is no other option to avoid war, than to hold talks with Pakistan.

P Chidambaram, the Congress party leader and former finance minister, said that dealing with the neighbouring nation was “very complicated”, however, there was no other alternative available to avoid war, Hindustan Times reported

“Plebiscite was offered under very different conditions, please understand that,” he said adding, that since then the conditions have changed dramatically.

The Congress senior leader said that for about 70 years now Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK) and Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) are being governed by India and Pakistan respectively, however, now “the entire ground conditions have changed”.

In response to a question, he said that dealing with Pakistan was more complex, which involved a mixture of areas like foreign, defence and security policies.



“So it is very complicated dealing with Pakistan... but as Vajpayeeji once said and [former prime minister] Dr Manmohan Singh repeated, Pakistan is our neighbour, we can change our friends, we cannot change our neighbours.”

Chidamabaram, who was also served India as union minister, said: “We have to live with Pakistan forever and ever.”

While recalling the wars fought between the two nuclear-armed neighbours, he said, “Ultimately, we have to talk to Pakistan...you may get nothing out it, you may call me a pacifist, I am firmly of the view that war does not solve any problems.”



Tensions escalated between Islamabad and New Delhi after the February 14 suicide attack in which a young man – a native of occupied Kashmir – rammed an explosives-laden car into an Indian paramilitary convoy, killing over 40 personnel in Pulwama district.

Following the Pulwama incident, the Indian Air Force (IAF) violated Pakistani airspace near the Line of Control (LoC) and were chased away by Pakistan Air Force (PAF) jets on February 26.

Living up to its promise to ‘surprise’ India. the very next day PAF fighter jets shot down two Indian warplanes and captured a pilot after they intruded into its airspace while responding to a Pakistani aerial mission on targets inside occupied Kashmir.

On Friday, Pakistan ‘as a goodwill gesture’ handed over to Indian authorities the captured Indian Air Force (IAF) Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman as the nuclear-armed neighbours scaled back a confrontation that has prompted world powers to urge restraint.

This story originally appeared in the Hindustan Times