Clearing The Air : Pakistan’s Minister Of State For Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar Rules Out Any Back Channel Diplomacy With India

Picture : Twitter/ ANI

Pakistan said on Thursday that no backchannel talks were being held between Islamabad and New Delhi. “At this moment, there is no such thing under way,” Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar told the Senate – the upper house of parliament.

She added that backchannel diplomacy was desirable when it was result-oriented.

In a PTI report, Separately, Foreign Office Spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch at the weekly media briefing reiterated Khar’s remarks about no secret diplomatic engagements with India.

“There is no backchannel diplomacy between India and Pakistan,” Baloch said.

Speaking in the Senate, Khar went on to say that Pakistan had always taken initiatives to promote peace in the region but right now, the cross-border hostility [from India] is of a unique type.

She said that Pakistan was asked at international forums sometimes to normalise its ties with India, but the world should look at the messages New Delhi was sending to Islamabad.

“The messages that we are getting are all conflagratory. Pakistan has the largest interest in unleashing [the potential of] this region but when you have a government on the other side whose prime minister says that their nuclear assets are not for Diwali [] then what can we do?” Khar told the senators.

Her remarks came days after Indian media reported that New Delhi has invited Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and Chief Justice of Pakistan Umar Ata Bandial to attend the foreign ministers’ and chief justices’ meetings of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation or SCO in Goa in May.