Modi has not offered dialogue: Pak Foreign Office

Islamabad:  Pakistan on Monday clarified that Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has not said that Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi has made an offer of dialogue between the two countries.

The Pakistan Foreign Office blamed the Indian media for creating a controversy unnecessarily and said the minister had said that the Indian premier in his letter to his Pakistani counterpart Imran Khan had also mentioned something similar — that the way forward was only through constructive engagement.

“Pakistan looks forward to a mutually beneficial, uninterrupted dialogue with India to resolve all issues,” the Foreign Office said in a statement, adding that “any attempts to instigate controversy and vitiate the environment are counter-productive.”

The statement said the foreign minister was “also briefed about the same positivity and constructive environment prevailing during the meeting of the former Minister of Law & Information with the Indian External Affairs Minister during his visit to India on August 18 to attend the funeral of Mr. Atal Bihari Vajpayee.”
India-Pakistan bilateral talks have been suspended since 2016 after an attack on an Indian military base in January that year.


Qureshi earlier in the day told reporters that his ministry has received a letter of felicitations for Prime Minister Imran Khan from the Indian Prime Minister in which he has called for resolving disputes through bilateral talks and indicated the beginning of talks between the two countries.

“This is a positive development. There is a need for continued and uninterrupted dialogue with India,” he said, adding that Pakistan and India cannot afford any adventurism and bilateral engagement is the best option to find out solution to problems.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.