India won’t accept third party mediation between Indo-Pak, says G Parthasarathy

Amid reports of the UAE setting up a dialogue between India and Pakistan, India's High Commissioner to Pakistan, G Parthasarathy told ETV Bharat senior correspondent Chandrakala Choudhury that the country does not want and accept third party mediation between the two South Asian neighbours.

New Delhi: Amid reports that Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has said Pakistan would appreciate anyone and everyone, including the United Arab Emirates (UAE) playing a positive role in easing the tension between the two neighbours, former ambassador and High Commissioner of India to Pakistan G Parthasarathy told ETV Bharat that India does not want the third party to mediate and that India is being polite to the UAE. ‘India’s position is very clear and this issue has to be settled bilaterally or by means of mutually agreed upon principles, he added.

Taking a realistic view of the UAE’s effort to bring India and Pak to the negotiating table, Parthasarathy said that every country likes to get a good name in foreign policy.

"Pakistan’s relation with the UAE and Saudi Arabia deteriorated after Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan took interest in joining an Islamic grouping in a proposal initiated by Turkey and Malaysia, which saw serious objections from most of the Arab countries because traditionally the leadership of OIC has been with Saudi Arabia and the Arab countries. So it ruined Pakistan’s relation with both Saudi Arabia and the UAE for over a year," said the former diplomat.

"Pakistan had to make all sorts of amends because it is very much dependent on remittances from the UAE and Saudi Arabia. After a considerable time, the UAE agreed to progressively normalise relation with Pakistan and this has been the process that lasted for almost two years. But the fact of the matter is the UAE has such good relations with India that they won’t offend us”, he pointed out.

When asked if a dialogue can be expected between India and Pakistan anytime soon, Parthasarathy said, "Indo-Pak dialogue has to be back channel and secret, otherwise it is meaningless. Although it is too early to say, talks are at a preliminary stage and I do not doubt in my mind that there is a backchannel going on.”

Pakistan's foreign minister told the UAE's local media that 'ultimately, it is the people of South Asia who have to sit and decide what kind of a future they visualise for themselves’, denying that there are no India related talks on his agenda during his visit to the UAE. Qureshi is currently on a three-day visit to Abu Dhabi.

“I am here for a bilateral visit; I am not here for India-specific agenda. My agenda is UAE- Pakistan and not India-Pakistan”, he said, while adding that Pakistan welcomes ‘third-party facilitation’ to settle the ongoing dispute between the two countries and that India has always been hesitant on the same.

India on the other hand, has preferred to keep quiet as it has always maintained that dialogue should be bilateral and denied outside interference on the Kashmir issue.

Interestingly, External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar arrived in Abu Dhabi on Sunday. The focus of his visit is economic cooperation, strengthening bilateral ties and community welfare. Dr Jaishankar held productive interaction with his UAE counterpart Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, where the two leaders discussed the entire gamut of bilateral relationships especially a strong focus on economic recovery post-Covid-19.

Although there has been speculation that both the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan might hold talks in the UAE, the leaders stated that no such meeting have been set up. Earlier reports were suggesting that the UAE was initiating a round of dialogues between India and Pakistan.

Ties between India and Pakistan took an ugly turn ever since the Pulwama attack and the scrapping of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, which took both countries to the brink of war. It caught the attention of the international community to an extent that all the major powers had called for de-escalation and end of hostilities.

A few weeks earlier, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan said there can be no normal relations between Pakistan and India until and unless India reverses its decision on revocation of Article 370. India has time and again maintained that it desires a normal neighbourly relation with Pakistan in an environment free of terror, hostility and violence. However, India had highlighted that the onus is on Pakistan to create an environment free of violence and hostility.