NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi had written a letter to Imran Khan on August 18 congratulating him on assuming office and expressing India’s commitment to build neighbourly relations through meaningful and constructive engagement. Recalling their telephonic conversation when they had spoken of their shared vision to bring peace and security to the subcontinent, he stressed on the need to shun terror and violence and focus on prosperity.
But New Delhi on Monday bristled over new Pakistan foreign minister Makhdoom Shah Mehmood Qureshi’s remark that Modi’s letter was a call for a dialogue, and later the Pakistan foreign office clarified that Qureshi had meant “engagement,” and not dialogue.” Soon after being sworn in on Monday, Qureshi began by noting that “Pakistan’s interest is at very centre of foreign policy. Wherever we need to fix our foreign policy we will fix it.” He said he would soon call on the Afghan foreign minister with a message that the two neighbours needed to sit together and resolve outstanding issues. “My second message is for the government of India. I want to tell the Indian foreign minister that we are not just neighbours; we are atomic powers.”
Warning against the possibility of “accidental adventurism”, he said “Coming to the table and talking peace is our only option.” “Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who is no longer in this world, came to Lahore and Islamabad, and he acknowledged the reality of Pakistan and that Kashmir is our outstanding issue. We need a continued and uninterrupted dialogue. This is our only way forward.”
Towards the end of his talk, he was interrupted by Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua, and then Qureshi jubilantly declared, “Our foreign secretary just told us that the Indian Wazir-e-Azam (PM) has congratulated Imran Khan and expressed the will to commence dialogue. And that is a welcome step.”
Soon afterwards, however, the Pakistani foreign office released a statement, “In response to a query regarding the controversy being unnecessarily created by sections of the Indian media, the spokesperson stressed that the Foreign Minister had not stated that “the Indian Prime Minister had made an offer of a dialogue”, but had said that the Indian Prime Minister in his letter to PM, Imran Ahmed Khan Niazi, had also mentioned something similar to what the Foreign Minister elucidated earlier i.e. that the way forward was only through constructive engagement.”
In another significant remark, Qureshi said, “The West has some preconceived ideas of where the foreign policy of Pakistan is made. Let me make it very clear it will be made at the foreign office. We have input from our national security institutes; there is institutional memory and we will engage with them for the betterment of Pakistan. Pakistan first. ”