Islamabad and New Delhi must resolve the issue of Kashmir to bring about peace between the two neighbours, Shehbaz Sharif, the likely successor to Imran Khan as the Prime Minister of Pakistan, has said.
Fingers are crossed now in New Delhi as India cautiously observs the ascent of the president of the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) to the top office in Islamabad after the voting on the no-confidence motion against Khan in the National Assembly cut short the cricketer-turned-politician’s tenure as the Prime Minister.
“We (Pakistan) want peace with India, but peace is not possible without resolution of the Kashmir issue,” Shehbaz, brother of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, told Geo News in Islamabad on Sunday.
Recently, Pakistan Army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa also called for “dialogue and diplomacy” to settle his nation’s disputes with India.
New Delhi has not yet officially reacted to the comments by Shehbaz or Gen Bajwa, but it maintains that India is ready to hold talks with Pakistan to resolve all outstanding issues in accordance with the 1972 Shimla Agreement and the 1999 Lahore Declaration between the two nations.
It, however, also maintains that the onus is on Pakistan to stop the export of terror to India and to create a conducive atmosphere for talks.
Shehbaz, who was then the Chief Minister of Punjab province of Pakistan, had visited New Delhi in 2013. He had a meeting with the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. He had also taken a ride on Delhi Metro.
When he had been leading the PML (N)’s as its prime ministerial candidate in the 2018 parliamentary polls, Shehbaz had cited the example of talks between the US and North Korea to suggest that Pakistan and India could also try to bury the hatchet and normalize the relation between the two nations.
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