KL NEWS NETWORK
SRINAGAR
India Thursday reacted to the statement by Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif where he urged for an immediate withdrawal of Indian forces from Kashmir. Posting on Twitter, India’s spokesperson for Ministry of External Affairs, Vikas Swarup accused Pakistan of being a prime sponsor of terrorism and called on Islamabad to de-territorize the Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
“Pakistan is not primary victim of terrorism but of its own policies. It is in fact the prime sponsor of terrorism,” he wrote on the popular micro-blogging site. “To de-militarize Kashmir is not the answer, to de-terrorize Pakistan is.”
Swarup said that Pakistan rightly acknowledged the issue of occupation viz a viz Kashmir but has gotten a “wrong occupier,” implicitly referring to Islamabad under whose control is PaK.
Pertinently, during his annual address at the 70th session of the UN General Assembly Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has stated that steps should be taken to demilitarise Kashmir. He also proposed that Pakistan and India should agree to an unconditional mutual withdrawal from Siachen Glacier, the world’s highest battleground.
Sharif had proposed a four-point agenda to diffuse tensions between his country and India with regard to the Kashmir issue as well as the frequent reported incidents of ceasefire violations along the Line of Control (LoC) and the International Working Boundary (IWB) that separates the two nations in Jammu and Kashmir.
“Cooperation, not confrontation, should define our relationship with India. Yet today ceasefire violations along the Line of Control and the Working Boundary are intensifying, causing civilian deaths including women and children. I want to use the opportunity today to propose a new peace initiative with India, starting with measures that are the simplest to implement,” he said.
He had suggested that Pakistan and India formalize and respect the November 26, 2003 understanding for a complete ceasefire on the Line of Control in Kashmir. For this purpose, he had called for the UNMOGIP’s expansion to monitor the observance of the ceasefire.
