Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Chairman and prime minister-in-waiting Imran Khan Friday stressed the need to restart dialogue between Pakistan and India on all outstanding issues, including Kashmir.

“Discussed the need to restart dialogue between Pak & India on all outstanding issues including Kashmir,” Imran Khan’s spokeswoman Anila Khawaja said after party chief’s meeting with India High Commissioner in Pakistan Ajay Bisaria, who visited Bani Gala to congratulate Khan on his party’s victory in the recently held general elections.

Imran expressed concerns over human rights violations in the occupied valley. He also expressed hope that India will participate in the upcoming SAARC summit, scheduled to be held in Islamabad soon.

Bisaria felicitated the prime minister-designate on behalf of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and discussed matters of mutual interest. He said after Prime Minister Modi’s telephone call to Imran, there was a new optimism in India that relations would move forward in the right direction.

Bisaria also presented a cricket bat signed by the entire Indian cricket team to the former Pakistani legend.

Senior party leaders including Vice Chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Information Secretary Fawad Chaudhary were also present during the meeting.

Last month, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had telephoned Imran Khan saying his country was ready to enter a new era of relations with Pakistan. A statement issued by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs from New Delhi had said Modi spoke to Khan and “congratulated him for his party emerging as the largest political party in the National Assembly of Pakistan in the recently conducted general elections.”

Besides tense relations with India, Khan’s government – once in power – will have to tackle other difficult challenges including a looming balance of payments crisis, unrest on the Afghan border, and water scarcity.

Khan brings charisma and international name recognition, but running the country will take considerable statecraft from his relatively inexperienced party.

He has already vowed to rebalance Islamabad’s relationship with the US, months after US President Donald Trump suspended security aid over Islamabad’s alleged failure to target militancy along its borders.

Published in Daily Times, August 11^th 2018.