NEW DELHI: India has conveyed to Pakistan that it remains committed to talks but the "new unilateral" conditions imposed by it cannot be the basis for "going forward."
India feels that Pakistan was never serious about the talks between their National Security Advisers as notwithstanding the outcome of the Ufa Summit, there has been a significant increase in shelling by Pakistani troops targeting civilian population in Jammu and Kashmir and a rise in infiltration besides two major terror attacks.
The assessment in New Delhi is that Pakistan’s position on NSA-level talks is in contradiction to what was agreed to between Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Nawaz Sharif in Ufa on July 10 as Islamabad tried to make a "distorted interpretation" of the understanding. India has conveyed to Pakistan that its "unilateral imposition of new conditionalities and distorted interpretation" of what was agreed between the two Prime Ministers was not acceptable.
New Delhi feels that Islamabad has gone back on the Ufa agreement as "some forces" in that country did not want the talks to go forward.
The government here is not surprised by Pakistan’s position on talks between the two top security advisers, going by its action following the outcome in Ufa.
It is understood that there was no possibility of Pakistan NSA Sartaj Aziz coming here for the talks with his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval.
India had made it clear to Pakistan that a meeting between the separatists and Sartaj Aziz was unacceptable.
Pakistan reacted strongly to insist that it would not depart from the "established past practice" of interacting with separatist Hurriyat leaders, rejecting India's advice not to go ahead with their meeting with Aziz.
India hit back accusing Pakistan of trying to evade its commitment to engage in a substantive discussion on terrorism as had been agreed between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif in Ufa.
It said that Islamabad's insistence on meeting Hurriyat leaders as a pre-condition was a complete departure from the Ufa understanding.
Moreover, India has always held the position that there re only two, not three, stakeholders in the bilateral relationship.
Unilateral imposition of new conditions and "distortion of the agreed agenda cannot be the basis for going forward," External Affairs Spokesperson Vikas Swarup said.