India says not working on plan to upgrade diplomatic ties with Pakistan

LAHORE: India is not working on any plan to upgrade diplomatic ties with Pakistan.

On the other hand, Pakistan’s Foreign Office has said that relations with India cannot be normalised till solution of Kashmir issue.

Talking to this reporter, a senior officer of India’s External Affairs Ministry claimed that New Delhi had written many letters to Islamabad regarding appointment of high commissioner, and even posted a senior diplomat as the high commissioner but there was silence from Pakistan.

Islamabad neither issued an agreement not did it answer the letters, he said. After that, India decided to review its policy to upgrade diplomatic relations with Pakistan.

The official said that after the 2024 election, the new government in India could contact Pakistan in that regard.

To a question, the Indian officer said that China has played role in stabilising diplomatic ties among Saudi Arabia, Iran and Yemen, but there was no truth in reports that Beijing was playing any such role between New Delhi and Islamabad. And India too has ruled out arbitration by a third country.

In Islamabad, the Foreign Office told this correspondent that India had usurped Kashmiris’ rights by annexing Occupied Jammu and Kashmir in 2019. It also did not implement the United Nations resolutions on Kashmir. The FO added that unless India restores Kashmir’s status to its original level, its relations with Pakistan cannot normalise. There was no plan to upgrade diplomatic relations with New Delhi, it said.