Pakistan keen to develop good relations with India on equal footing: PM

Statement comes during premier’s meeting with Pakistan High Commissioner to India Abdul Basit at PM House

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said on Wednesday Pakistan is keen to develop good relations with India on the basis of sovereign equality.

“Pakistan is keen to develop good relations with India on the basis of sovereign equality as well as mutual respect and interest,” Nawaz said.

The statement came during the premier’s meeting with Pakistan High Commissioner to India Abdul Basit at the PM House in Islamabad. Basit briefed the prime minister on the state of Pakistan, India relations with particular reference to latest developments.

Just yesterday, the premier said that Pakistan's enemy wants to sabotage the multibillion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project.

Read: Mastung massacre: Enemy wants to sow ethnic discord, says PM

"A neighbouring country has already voiced its reservations,” Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif told an all-party conference (APC) at the Governor House in Quetta.  By ‘a neighbouring country’ the premier meant India which has long been accused by Pakistani civil and military leaders of fomenting terrorism in Balochistan and elsewhere in the country as part of its attempts to destabilise Pakistan. Recent statement by Indian cabinet ministers that New Delhi must ‘neutralise terror with terror’ lent credence to such accusations.

The APC adopted a declaration which says anti-state elements were involved in terrorist attacks in Balochistan at the behest of ‘foreign powers’. “The enemy country is trying to destabilise Pakistan by orchestrating attacks like the killing of Pashtuns in Mastung and of Ismaili community members in Karachi,” the prime minister said.

Read: No talks until Pakistan takes action against Lakhvi: Indian external affairs minister

Islamabad believes India’s top spy agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), is out to perpetrate terrorism in Pakistan by arming and bankrolling terrorists as New Delhi wants to undermine the ambitious CPEC project which, Islamabad says, will be economic ‘game changer’ for the region. India doesn’t hide its opposition to the multibillion-dollar project as its foreign minister Sushma Swaraj said on Monday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has conveyed to Beijing that the CPEC is ‘unacceptable’ to New Delhi.

Referring to the Mastung massacre, Premier Nawaz said the enemy’s objective was to fuel hatred between two brotherly ethnic communities in Balochistan in an attempt to impede Pakistan’s march on the road to economic progress. “The sickening violence [in Mastung] was condemnable, but government and opposition leaders foiled the nefarious designs of the enemy by controlling the situation,” he added.

Wednesday's meeting comes in the background of constant verbal exchange between the two countries with India’s external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj saying dialogue between India and Pakistan will only be held under the condition that Pakistan takes action against terrorists like Lakhvi and others for carrying out terror acts in India.

Further, just yesterday the prime minister's senior aide, Sartaj Aziz, said India’s requests for Pakistan to create an environment free of violence as ‘ironic.’

“When India keeps violating ceasefire at the Line of Control and the Working Boundary, indulges in worst human rights violations against helpless Kashmiris in Indian occupied Kashmir, and undertakes subversive activities in Pakistan, then asking Pakistan to create an environment free of violence only sounds ironic,” Aziz said.

Read: India asking Pakistan to create violence-free environment is ironic: Aziz

Responding to India’s external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj’s statement that dialogue between India and Pakistan will only be held under the condition that Pakistan takes action against terrorists like Lakhvi and others for carrying out terror acts in India, Aziz said, “As regards the Mumbai trial, it is proceeding in the court of law.”