ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi today (Monday) asserted that he neither is he the Taliban’s spokesperson nor the group’s lawyer, adding, “I am only Pakistan’s foreign minister.”
Addressing a press conference in Islamabad, the foreign minister said he had responded as a Pakistani to the Afghan national security advisor’s recent anti-Pakistan response. “The Afghan NSA’s statement did not benefit his country,” he said, adding, “Pakistan has always tried to persuade the Taliban to negotiate.”
On June 5, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi had lashed out at the Afghan NSA for his comments against Pakistan and called on him to “reflect and correct” his behaviour.
Responding to media queries on June 19, the Foreign Office spokesperson had strongly condemned the “baseless insinuations” by the Afghan NSA and noted that Pakistan’s role in the Afghan peace process has been widely acknowledged by the international community.
India’s all-party conference
Meanwhile, the foreign minister termed India’s June 24 all-party conference as “unusual” adding that the Kashmiri leadership in India had rejected Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s proposal.
“The meeting is a hidden indicator that points out how everything is not all right [in India],” he stressed. Kashmiri politicians will urge Modi to restore Jammu and Kashmir’s autonomy when they meet him on Thursday.
The Kashmiri leadership meets the Indian premier for the first time since the government scrapped Article 370 of the Indian constitution, taking away occupied Kashmir’s special status two years ago, party officials said.
Reasserting New Delhi’s control in August 2019, Modi abolished Article 370 of the Constitution, ending the region’s autonomy and removing its statehood by splitting it into the federal territories of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) and Buddhist-dominated Ladakh.
