INDIA LAYS OFF TALKS WITH PAKISTAN

Indian  government on Monday cancelled the much-awaited meeting between the foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan to lay out the way ahead for bilateral ties. The decision came after that country’s High Commissioner Abdul Basit decided to go ahead with meeting some Kashmiri separatist leaders, despite the foreign secretary  “warning” him not to do so.

“Choose a dialogue with India or separatists. Pakistan’s interference in India’s internal affairs is not acceptable,” Foreign Secretary Sujhata Singh  is learnt to have told Basit, even as the first of Kashmiri separatist leaders, Shabir Shah, drove into the mission on Monday.

The foreign secretary-level talks were scheduled to take place in Islamabad on August 25.

(Sarkarimirror Bureau)