Pakistan stated on Thursday that there were no backchannel conversations between Islamabad and New Delhi, news agency PTI reported.
“There is no such thing going on right now,” Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar told the Senate, the upper chamber of parliament.
She went on to say that backchannel diplomacy was preferable when it was result-oriented.
Separately, Foreign Office Spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch echoed Khar’s statements regarding no covert diplomatic encounters with India at the weekly media conference.
“There is no backchannel diplomacy between India and Pakistan,” Baloch was quoted by PTI in its report.
Speaking in the Senate, Khar went on to explain that while Pakistan has always taken steps to promote regional peace, “right now, the cross-border antagonism [from India] is of an unique type.” She stated that while Pakistan was occasionally requested at international forums to normalise relations with India, the world should look at the messages New Delhi was giving to Islamabad.
Addressing the senators, Khar stated: “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?”
Her comments came only days after Indian media claimed that New Delhi had invited Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and Chief Justice of Pakistan Umar Ata Bandial to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) conference of foreign ministers and chief justices in Goa in May.
Baloch stated in her briefing that Pakistan has received and was considering the invitation given by India as the host of the SCO summit.
“The invitation is being reviewed. A decision regarding participation in the meeting will be taken after deliberation,” she said.
She stated that, as in the past, the Indian invitations are being processed in accordance with regular protocols and that a decision would be made in due time.
The SCO, according to the spokesperson, is a major trans-regional organisation aimed at strengthening economic ties and collaboration among its member nations in several domains.
“Both India and Pakistan are members of the SCO. India is hosting the conference this year and as the chairman, it has sent an invitation to us. The invitation is being reviewed. A decision regarding participation in the meeting will be taken after deliberation,” Baloch told the media, Dawn reported.
Concerning the contentious BBC documentary aimed at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Khar stated that the broadcaster had showed the world what Pakistan had previously said, adding that Pakistan had learned from history, while certain nations in the area had not.
“Pakistan has always been vocal about the massacre of Muslims in Gujarat. BBC has exposed the excesses of Narendra Modi and the BJP,” she was quoted by Dawn in its report.
India has maintained that it wants regular neighbourly ties with Pakistan while emphasising that the onus is on Islamabad to provide a safe environment for such an engagement.
After India’s jets attacked a Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist training camp in Balakot, Pakistan, in response to the Pulwama terror attack in February 2019, tensions between India and Pakistan were severely strained.
Relations worsened further when India announced in August 2019 the withdrawal of Jammu and Kashmir’s special powers and the division of the state into two union territories.