Indian army chief announces support for BJP govt

ISLAMABAD: Indian Army Chief General Bipin has publicly supported the BJP government decision regarding cancellation of talks between foreign ministers of two countries. In line with his government’s contentious stand that terror and talks cannot go hand in hand, General Bipin Rawat on Sunday said that the Union government has taken the right decision to call off talks between Indian and Pakistani foreign ministers.

Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and his Indian counterpart Sushma Swaraj were to meet in New York this week on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

General Rawat said that the Indian government has time and again made it clear that Pakistan must stop terrorists from using its soil to launch attacks against India. “Talks are not being held, because our government’s policy is that talks and terrorism cannot take place together. We have given a clear message to Pakistan. Government’s policy is clear that Pakistan has to prove with their actions that they are not promoting terrorism,” the army chief said. They (Pakistan) keep on saying that they will not let their soil be used for terrorist activities against other nation. But we can see that terrorist activities are taking place and terrorists are coming from across the border,” he claimed. India, on Friday, decided to call off the meeting of foreign ministers of India and Pakistan that it had agreed to a day before.

India cited the recent killing of three SPOs in the Kashmir Valley allegedly by Pakistan-backed terrorists and the mutilation of the body of BSF Head Constable Narendra Kumar near the international border as one of the reasons for cancelling the talks.

“Only the government can decide if talks should be held in such an environment, and I think the government has taken the right decision that terrorism and peace talks cannot be held together,” General Rawat said on Sunday. Another reason cited by India for cancelling the talks was that Pakistan has released a series of 20 postage stamps glorifying Burhan Wani, a freedom fighter who was martyred by Indian forces in Kashmir in 2016.