Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Indian High Commissioner TCA Raghavan said on Monday that his country will only discuss Azad Jammu and Kashmir in the India-Pakistan dialogue.

The high commissioner said, “We regard the occupation of Azad Jammu and Kashmir by Pakistan as illegal and raise the issue in bi-lateral negotiations.” He noted that Pakistan and India have both been impacted by the absence of a real bilateral relationship, and the recent joint statement of the two countries’ foreign ministers makes a good attempt to re-initiate the process which was abandoned in 2008, he said, noting that “comprehensive” dialogue will hopefully be more than a change of nomenclature”.

Raghavan was addressing the seminar tidied “State of India-Pakistan Bilateral Relations – Current Issues & Prospects” which was organised by Centre for Research and Security studies on Monday. The high commissioner said that relations between most neighbouring countries around the world suffer from deadlocks and disputes, the only major exceptions include US and Canada and countries within European Union. The challenge is how countries work together to evolve a good, working and mutually beneficial relationship.

He said the post-Partition sixty-eight-year history of India and Pakistan has very little that has contributed to evolution for a real relationship between both countries. Both countries have low level of trade, virtually no bilateral investments and little people-to-people exchanges. The best minds from both countries have been trying since Partition to present solutions acceptable to both sides. “The challenge remains: How do we move forward?” Commenting on the recent developments in India and Pakistan he observed that there is a need to contextualise the recent breakthrough in Islamabad.