Pakistan Army has no links with Lashkar-e-Taiba: Hina Rabbani
Islamabad: Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar on Thursday rubbished the reports of link between Pakistan Army and terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Addressing a press conference at the Foreign Office, Khar hoped that the ceasefire violations along the Line of Control would not be a setback to or derail the peace process with India.
Khar reiterated Pakistan’s offer to have the clashes investigated by the UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan. India has out rightly rejected this offer.
As part of these efforts, the Directors General of Military Operations of the two countries had been in contact and a protest had been lodged by Pakistan’s Foreign Office with the Indian Deputy High Commissioner, she said.
Khar repeatedly said that the government and people of Pakistan were committed to normalising relations with India and ruled out an official response to every statement being made by Indian political leaders on the clashes along the LoC.
“The Pakistan government and the Pakistani people have demonstrated a deep, abiding commitment to normalise and improve relations with India and to really start a journey of trust-building,” she said.
The Pakistan People’s Party-led government, she said, had been “walking the talk on giving India very pragmatic and specific messages, for instance through trade normalization and visa liberalisation”.
The Pakistan government is “leading towards a track which is of trust-building and normalising this region which has been very unstable because of irresponsible actions and statements”, Khar said.
The government would not do anything that would promote or contribute to instability, she added.
Khar said Pakistan had been “a bit appalled and unpleasantly surprised to see such strong statements emanating four days after (a Pakistani soldier) lost his life” in a clash along the LoC on Sunday.
She said it was also “unfortunate” that there were “contradictory statements” from Indian Army officials on whether an Indian soldier had been decapitated.
However, she acknowledged that there was now “a sense of trying to de-escalate on their (Indian) side from those statements and I think that is the right way to go”.
Asked about Pakistan’s failure to meet a December 31 deadline for giving Most Favoured Nation-status to India, Khar said the government was committed to normalising all aspects of bilateral relations, including trade and commerce.
“Let me convey once again our commitment to normalize relations with India…and we are talking about normalizing (ties) in all aspects. So I like to look at it as trade normalisation because we are not granting India any special favours. We are granting India the same treatment that we grant to 180 countries,” she said.
“There is a commitment of this government to go ahead with that. There are processes which need to be pursued and a delay of a few weeks here or there (in giving MFN-status) should not be too much of a worry,” she added.
Khar said Pakistan was keen to ensure that there were no “invisible barriers” to trade.
“It’s easy to normalise trade by giving each other MFN-status but Pakistan is committed to ensure that there are no visible or invisible barriers to trade. Tariff and non-tariff barriers should cease to exist,” she said.
The Pakistan government has reportedly held up the grant of MFN-status after several ministries and trade lobbies contended that rapid trade liberalisation would allow Indian goods and products to swamp the Pakistani market.
