Former foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Saturday called out India for its \u201cexcuses\u201d to avoid any dialogue with Pakistan to resolve their outstanding issues after recent tensions between the two countries.<\/p>\n
Pakis\u00adtan has launched a broad-based engagement campaign in the United States to present its perspective on the recent spike in tensions with India, and counter New Delhi\u2019s growing lobbying presence there. As part of its global outreach, the team will also visit London and Brussels. The delegation comprises former foreign ministers Bilawal, Hina Rabbani Khar and Khurram Dastgir; Senators Sherry Rehman, Musadik Malik, Faisal Sabzwari and Bushra Anjum Butt; along with senior envoys Jalil Abbas Jilani and Teh\u00admina Janjua.<\/p>\n
Addressing a press conference in Washington after wrapping up engagements with US lawmakers and think tanks, the PPP chairman said Pakistan\u2019s civil and military leadership were all on the same page against terrorism and believed that it was in the region\u2019s interest to establish with India. \u201cIt is India who\u2019s been running away from calls for an investigation and it\u2019s been India who\u2019s been running away from efforts for dialogue. I believe that is perhaps the lamest excuse for not having a dialogue right now,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Bilawal offered to arrange a dialogue with the military or political leadership if India wanted.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe the true path forward is for India and Pakistan to engage in a dialogue to establish peace. Whatever excuse you want to make sometimes, it\u2019s this civil military excuse, sometimes it\u2019s this geopolitical excuse, sometimes it\u2019s this \u2018Oh all Muslims are terrorist excuse so we\u2019re not going to talk to Pakistan\u2019 \u2014 it\u2019s getting [tiresome]. You can\u2019t be two nuclear armed neighbours with a conflict threshold so low and absolutely no dispute resolution mechanism.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bilawal said India did not want mediation from the US or the United Nations or any interactional actor and did not even want to engage directly with Pakistan, noting that this made no rational sense.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s in all our interest to convince India to undo the decision that doesn\u2019t serve their purposes and come to the table and talk.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bilawal said the recent ceasefire between the two countries was only the first step.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor durable peace in South Asia, we need to have a comprehensive dialogue with our neighbour where we address all our friction points. Indeed, when Pakistan agreed to the ceasefire, we did so on the condition that going forward, there would be a dialogue in a neutral location on all friction points.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd we\u2019re very confident that that is the only way forward, not only for Pakistan, but also for India. While we\u2019re very grateful for the ceasefire, we\u2019re cognizant of the fact that we are all, Pakistan and India, but our region and the globe, by extension, a less safe place today than we were when this conflict started.\u201d<\/p>\n
The former FM said the threshold for \u201cfull-blown war between two nuclear-armed powers\u201d had been drastically decreased and was at a stage it was never before at in history.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs things stand today, if there\u2019s a terrorist attack anywhere in India or Indian-occupied Kashmir, proof or no proof, that means war. That doesn\u2019t serve the interest of my country, and that certainly doesn\u2019t serve the interests of the people of India.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bilawal once again said that Pakistan was ready to discuss the issue of terrorism in any \u201ccomprehensive dialogue\u201d with India.<\/p>\n
He stressed that if there was to be new dialogue with India and new promises and new treaties, \u201cthen it\u2019s all the more important that we abide by our old treaties so we have confidence in each other that the new agreements that we are to make are worth more than the paper that they are written on\u201d.<\/p>\n
Indian disinformation during military conflict
\nOn the topic of misinformation and disinformation during their recent conflict, Bilawal said a factor that played to Pakistan\u2019s favour was that \u201cwe were transparent and we managed to maintain our credibility.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were transparent with the media, we were transparent with our public, and we were transparent with our allies. The events corroborate what we say.<\/p>\n
\u201cThree people are making claims in this situation, Pakistan, the United States, and India. Two of us are saying one thing, one of them is saying something else. So I think you can try to figure out who\u2019s telling the truth. India employed disinformation not only during this conflict, they continue to employ disinformation as part of their delegations\u2019 tool.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey lied to the international community and their own people about this terrorist attack. To this day, they haven\u2019t shared either with the media, with their allies, or with Pakistan, who they fought a war with, who the terrorists were that were involved with this incident in Indian-occupied Kashmir. They have not been honest or forthcoming about the damages they sustained during this conflict. They still, to this day, refuse to admit how many airplanes they lost in this conflict.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bilawal said that to assess who was speaking more accurately, \u201cyou can see who\u2019s had the same line consistently, whose views are being corroborated by the statements made not only from the presidency, but also from the State Department.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said Pakistan prided itself on its transparency during this period, adding that the country still open to questions and probing on the facts.<\/p>\n
\u201cIndia has relied on disinformation throughout this conflict. Even during the war, the Indian media played the role of fake news and amplified some of this disinformation that originated from the Indian government.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Saturday called out India for its \u201cexcuses\u201d to avoid any dialogue with Pakistan to resolve their outstanding issues after recent tensions between the two countries. Pakis\u00adtan has launched a broad-based engagement campaign in the United States to present its perspective on the recent spike in tensions with India, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9892,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9891"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9891\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9893,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9891\/revisions\/9893"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}