WASHINGTON: Pakistan believes India will accept Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s invitation for discussions to address lingering concerns, particularly Jammu and Kashmir.
Ambassador Masood Khan also urged the United States to pay greater attention to this troubled region. The Pakistani envoy was cited as saying, “We have always pursued diplomacy with India,” in a Newsweek report on the most recent regional developments.
“The Prime Minister of Pakistan has once again made an offer for engagement; the U.S. has also expressed its support for direct dialogue between Pakistan and India on issues of concern,” he said in a statement to the widely read magazine.
“We hope there would be a reciprocal resonance from New Delhi,” Masood Khan added.
Speaking to Tom O’Conner for Newsweek on “Youm-e-Istehsal,” Ambassador Masood Khan warned that India’s illegal annexation of occupied Kashmir on August 5, 2019, and its subsequent actions, such as shaping the demography of the disputed region, posed a severe threat to the security of the area.
He said, “The situation has been deteriorating; it was not just annexation. This new domicile law opened the floodgates for the inflow of outsiders into the Indian Occupied Jammu & Kashmir, and they allowed their armed forces to acquire land inside Jammu and Kashmir. So, they’re changing the demographic composition, but in addition to that, they are also doing this electoral reengineering of the constituencies to reduce Muslim majority into a minority.”
Masood Khan said, “We have a shared objective, to eliminate terrorism and work for infrastructure development so that we leverage our economic geography. This economic geography can be used for more connectivity and economic partnerships, and I think terrorism in all forms is a barrier to achieving that objective.”
Noting close US engagements with allies along the Arabian Peninsula, Ambassador Khan stated, “This entire neighborhood should be looked at as a whole, as one big ecosystem.”
“So, I think that in that context, the United States should be more closely involved,” he said. “Right now, our priority is to attract US investment, particularly in tech startups, which have taken off in Pakistan, but, simultaneously, United States attention to the region to improve the security situation would also be welcomed by us.”
Masood Khan stated that the U.S. diplomatic engagement in the area was consistently good concerning Pakistan-US relations.
The Ambassador said the two countries were actively involved in dialogue on critical areas, including climate change, energy, counter-terrorism, security cooperation, health, education, and economic development. He said, “The United States’ attention to the region to improve security situation would also be welcomed by us.”
Terming Sino-Pak ties as a critical relationship, the Ambassador said that China was also contributing to Pakistan’s economic progress directly and indirectly to stability. “At the same time, we want to have an equally robust relationship with the United States.”
“After the withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan, we’ve recalibrated our relationship and are using most efficiently the space that is available to the United States and Pakistan, for building economic partnerships, for continuing with a paradigm of security cooperation, particularly regarding countering terrorism, and identifying long term strategy for strategic stability in the region.”
The Ambassador emphasized the importance of fostering intercultural exchanges by pointing out how thousands of Pakistani students had returned home after studying in the U.S. and were helping advance socioeconomic development in their nation. —APP
