Engagement with Pakistan needs to continue: India

NEW DELHI: The government has said that its engagement with neighbouring Pakistan needs to continue even if talks have come to a standstill over the issue of India being upset with ‘state-sponsored terror’.

“Engagement with Pakistan needs to continue. We cannot change our neighbours, we have to deal with them. But we have to deal with them with our eyes open. Let there be peace, there will be dialogue,” Minister of State for External Affairs MJ Akbar told reporters here on Wednesday.

Akbar said over the last two and a half years of the present government, India tried to achieve the best results with Pakistan under the Neighbourhood Policy even though the country tried to “disrupt” efforts made to revive dialogue.

“Peace cannot take place under a stray of bullets. Talks and terror cannot go together. This has to stop. There can be no other way for any forward movement,” he said.

Taking a dig at Pakistan, VK Singh, also minister of state for External Affairs, said all countries in the South Asia “barring one” had demonstrated their united efforts to fight against terrorism.

“The aim of the surgical strikes that we conducted was to convey to Pakistan that we will not countenance continued terrorism as the new normal in our relationship. Our own good faith has been amply demonstrated time and again through repeated initiatives to normalize the relationship. However, as we have often stated, talks and terror cannot go together,” Singh added.

On the issue of China vetoing India’s move at the UN to designate Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar as a terrorist, Akbar said India expected China “to hear the voice of the world and not just India”.

According to Singh, India’s membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) was discussed during an internal meeting in Vienna on November 11.

“Our engagement with China is purely driven by our national interest.

Certainly, there are areas of divergence with China, but that happens in any matured relationship,” he said.