Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be invited to Pakistan for the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) summit, Foreign Office Spokesman Dr Mohammad Faisal said on Tuesday.
Ties with Saarc member states have been tenuous since the 19th summit ─ which was to be held in Pakistan in 2016 ─ was cancelled after India boycotted the event, causing Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Bhutan to also pull out.
While addressing the Kashmir Conference in Islamabad, Dr Faisal recalled that Prime Minister Imran Khan in his first address had said that if India took one step forward, Pakistan would take two.
He added that the premier, in his response to Modi’s letter, had expressed Pakistan’s openness to resolving all outstanding issues through dialogue with India.
“We fought a war with India, relations cannot be fixed quickly,” Dr Faisal said.
The FO spokesman said that the Kartarpur Corridor, which will facilitate the visa-free travel of members of India’s Sikh community to their religious site in Pakistan, will be inaugurated tomorrow and is expected to be completed within six months.
He said that the groundbreaking ceremony of the Kartarpur Corridor is a great success for the country.
He added that Indian media had been invited to cover the inauguration ceremony, and that Pakistan is not hiding anything.
“In this century diplomacy has completely changed,” he said, adding: “Now policies are made based on citizens’ emotions and wishes.”
He urged the youth to highlight Indian forces’ atrocities being committed in Occupied Kashmir through social media for exposing India before the world community.
He said the youth can play an effective role in sharing excesses of Indian occupation forces through Twitter, Facebook and Whatsapp.
He also called for effectively engaging saner elements of India by giving counter arguments regarding Indian Kashmir policy on social media.
He said Foreign Office was making efforts to highlight Kashmir issue including organizing lectures, holding rallies to enhance awareness about the issue.
He said the incumbent government after assuming powers, immediately tried to normalize relations with India.Despite negative signals, Pakistan continued peace efforts and initive, he added.
Terming the United Nations office of the Human Rights Commissioner for Human Rights (OCHR) Report 2018 on Kashmir as a massive step, he said this time not Pakistan, but the world community is pointing out human rights violations in Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK).
The report also demanded constituting the Commission of Inquiry or a fact-finding mission to visit both IoK and Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and review the situation on ground. Pakistan is ready to allow the mission to visit AJK since there was nothing to cover up, he added.
