The foreign secretary-level talks between India and Pakistan won’t happen if Pakistan does not act against the Pathankot attack masterminds, National Security Adviser Ajit Doval said on Monday.
Amid uncertainty over talks between India and Pakistan following the terror attack at the Pathankot Air Base, India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval said in an interview published on Monday that “there will be no peace talks with Pakistan until India is satisfied with its investigation of the Pathankot attacks.”
However, Doval later said that India “will talk only if Pakistan takes action”. The secretary-level talks between the two countries were scheduled for January 15.
“The ball is in Pakistan’s court. The immediate issue is Pakistan’s response to the Pathankot attack and actionable intelligence provided to it,” external affairs ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup had said.
“Cross-border terrorism is again in focus after the terrorist attack on the Pathankot air force base,” he had said, adding that India was not derailing the dialogue.
Pakistan Foreign Ministry had earlier confirmed that India had shared evidence with them and Islamabad is working on the leads provided by the Indian government.
Pakistan Adviser on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz had recently said that the scheduled talks between foreign secretaries of Pakistan and India are still intact. Aziz said in Lahore that the two countries had agreed to hold talks on January 15. He said India has neither confirmed nor cancelled the scheduled meeting so far.
Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has also assured that Islamabad is swiftly carrying out investigations in a transparent manner and will bring out the truth.
The January 2 early morning attack on Pathankot airbase came just a week after the PM Narendra Modi made an unscheduled visit to Lahore while returning from Afghanistan and met his counterpart Nawaz Sharif. After the terror attack, Modi conveyed to Sharif that India wants to see urgent action taken against those who conceived and executed the terror plot.
The evidence furnished by India includes intercepts of several phone calls made by the six terrorists during the Pathankot airbase attack, to their handlers in Pakistan. Ammunition and other equipment recovered by security forces from the dead bodies of terrorists were also Pakistan-made.
