Pakistan Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry yesterday invited his Indian counterpart S Jaishankar to visit Islamabad for talks on Jammu and Kashmir.
The Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan was called by Chaudhry and handed over an invitation addressed to Jaishankar, the Foreign Office said.
The letter highlights the international obligation of both the countries to resolve the Jammu and Kashmir dispute in accordance with the UN Security Council resolutions.
Pakistan’s foreign policy chief Sartaj Aziz announced last week that the foreign secretary would write to his Indian counterpart to extend a formal invitation for the talks.
He had said Pakistan would invite India for the Kashmir talks despite their stalled Composite Dialogue process.
India and Pakistan dispute the ownership of Jammu and Kashmir.
Pakistan holds the northern third of the state and India the southern two-third.
New Delhi accuses Islamabad of arming and training the militants fighting to end Indian rule in Jammu and Kashmir.
Pakistan says it gives only moral and diplomatic backing.
India-Pakistan ties have become frosty after largescale violence broke out in Jammu and Kashmir following the killing of separatist Burhan Wani on July 8.
On July 25, Indian authorities arrested Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist Bahadur Ali in Kashmir.
Meanwhile, Islamabad said Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s references to Balochistan and Pakistani Kashmir are to divert attention from the unrest in Jammu and Kashmir.
Pakistan’s Foreign Policy Adviser Sartaj Aziz said, “The contrast between the Indian Kashmir and the Azad Jammu and Kashmir could not be more stark.”
He was reacting to Modi’s Independence Day speech in which the Indian prime minister came out openly in support of “freedom” of Balochistan and the Kashmir under Pakistani control.
Modi also lashed out at Islamabad for supporting terrorism and committing atrocities on people in Pakistan’s largest province Balochistan and parts of Kashmir it governs.
Aziz said Modi was “only trying to divert world attention from the grim tragedy that has been unfolding in the Indian-occupied Kashmir over the past five weeks”.
He said thousands of unarmed youth were protesting in the Kashmir Valley “for their right of self-determination”.
The foreign policy adviser condemned crackdown on Kashmiris in the weeks of unrest during which at least 58 people have been killed and thousands injured.
“There is constant curfew. These events have nothing to do with terrorism,” he said, calling the separatist campaign in Kashmir “an indigenous movement for self-determination”.
Aziz said that Modi’s reference to Balochistan “proves Pakistan’s contention that India through its main intelligence agency RAW has been fomenting terrorism” there.
“India should recognise that the core issue of Kashmir cannot be resolved by bullets. It requires a political solution, through serious negotiations between India and Pakistan,” he said.
India has denied the allegation.
The remarks came hours after Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhary invited Indian Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar to visit Islamabad for talks on Jammu and Kashmir.