Modi failed to isolate Pakistan: Mehbooba Mufti

SRINAGAR: Criticising Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, former chief minister of the Indian-Held Kashmir (IHK) Mehbooba Mufti on Sunday said he had played a joke on the nation that Pakistan had been diplomatically isolated.

“All Indian efforts to isolate Pakistan have failed to bear fruit,” Mufti said in an Indian television show ‘Aap Ki Adalat’ aired on Saturday night. “China, the USA, Saudi Arabia, and Russia are standing by Pakistan. So, it’s joke to say that India has isolated Pakistan.”

She said India wanted Kashmir without the Kashmiri Muslims. She said the US needed Pakistan for negotiations with the Afghan Taliban.

“China is constructing CPEC projects in Pakistan. Saudi Arabia calls India its friend but Pakistan its brother. Russia was with us but now it has good ties with Pakistan. Nepal and Sri Lanka also do not support India. Dialogue is the only way out if we have to stop the bloodshed in Kashmir,” she said.

“India fought wars with Pakistan in 1947, 1965, 1971 and 1999 but every conflict ended with a dialogue,” said the former CM.

On February 14, over 40 Indian soldiers were killed in a suicide bombing in the Indian-Held Kashmir after a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into their convoy. The Jaish-e-Mohammad claimed responsibility.