NSA talk: Ready for talks but must discuss Kashmir, says Pak NSA Aziz

Islamabad: Pakistan said on Saturday it is prepared to go ahead with crucial talks with India but Kashmir will have to be part of the agenda because it is the “most important outstanding issue” between the two countries.

Sartaj Aziz, advisor to the Prime Minister on national security and foreign affairs, said Pakistan believes Kashmir has to be part of the agenda for any talks even though it is not implicitly mentioned in the joint statement issued after the meeting between Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Nawaz Sharif in Russia last month.

“The K word is very much in the statement because we agreed to discuss all outstanding issues and everyone knows what is the most important outstanding issue...Kashmir is indirectly there in the statement,” he told a news briefing at the Foreign Office.

Aziz said he was prepared to go to India for planned talks with his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval on Monday provided the parleys are held “without any preconditions”.

A war of words that erupted on Thursday after Pakistan insisted on going ahead with a meet between Aziz and separatist Hurriyat leaders before the formal diplomatic engagement had raised a question mark about the meeting of the National Security Advisors (NSAs).

India has also rejected Pakistan’s move to include Kashmir and other issues in the agenda for the talks between the NSAs, saying the Prime Ministers had agreed in the Russian city of Ufa on July 10 that the meeting would be confined to “all issues connected to terrorism”

Aziz said Pakistan was not apprehensive about reports that India’s plans to hand over information regarding the involvement of Pakistani elements in recent terror attacks. He said he intended to hand over three dossiers “on RAW’s involvement in terrorism in Pakistan” to Doval if the meeting is held on Monday.

“If there is no meeting on August 24, we will hand the dossiers over to Doval when we meet in September at the United Nations and also share them with the UN secretary general,” he said.