ISLAMABAD: The Foreign Office said on Friday that while Pakistan had consistently advocated “constructive engagement and result-oriented dialogue” with India to resolve all outstanding issues — including the core Jammu and Kashmir dispute — it was India’s “unabated hostility and retrogressive steps that have vitiated the environment and impeded the prospects of peace and cooperation”.

Expanding on Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari’s remarks regarding relations with India in his address at an event a day earlier, the Foreign Office said that there was no change in Pakistan’s policy on India, on which there was a national consensus, adding that the minister’s views were “interpreted out of context”. In his speech on Thursday, the FM put greater emphasis on engaging India, saying it was time for pivoting to economic diplomacy and focusing on engagement.

The FO spokesperson said Pakistan had always desired cooperative relations with all its neighbours, including India. “The onus, therefore, remained on India to take the necessary steps to create an enabling environment conducive for meaningful and result-oriented dialogue,” he added.

He said the FM had articulated this perspective, referring to Delhi’s illegal and unilateral actions in Indian-held Jammu & Kashmir on August 5, 2019, describing them as an assault on the rights of the Kashmiri people, as well as rising Islamophobia in India, that created an environment un-conducive for meaningful engagement.

“The FM’s remarks are better understood in the overall context of his key message of conflict resolution that he emphasised in his address at the think tank event,” he stated.

Published in Dawn, June 18th, 2022