Pakistan showed its true colors again

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s National Security Advisor Moeed Yusuf on Tuesday said that he will not travel to India for the November 10 summit on Afghanistan. At the same time, he has rejected India’s role as a peacemaker in Afghanistan. India had also invited Pakistan to participate in the regional conference on Afghanistan being hosted by NSA Ajit Doval.

Yusuf said that he would not travel to India to attend the summit on Afghanistan to be held in India on November 10. The news said that in response to a question, Yusuf said that a ‘trouble maker’ cannot play the role of a peacemaker. Earlier, Pakistan’s Foreign Office had confirmed the invitation from India but said that the decision would be taken at the right time.

Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi had said that Pakistan’s decision would be based on the current status of relations between the two nuclear-armed neighboring countries. Yusuf said, “It would be pleasant for western countries to sit 10,000 miles away (from Afghanistan), but we have no option but to stay away from Afghanistan.”
He said that talks with Afghanistan are not a political issue for Pakistan but a humanitarian issue and it is related to our national security.

Recently a similar conference on Afghanistan was organized by Russia and this summit of India is the next phase of that. National Security Advisors of countries like Russia, China, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, Iran can participate in this conference organized by India.

This move of Pakistan has put an end to the possibility of melting ice in its relations with India. Relations between India and Pakistan have deteriorated after the 2016 terrorist attack on the Pathankot airbase. Relations were further worsened by the attack on the army camp in Uri. At the same time, relations between the two countries became tense after India’s airstrike after the Pulwama terror attack.

Relations between the two countries worsened in August 2019 after the Indian government’s decision to withdraw the special status of Jammu and Kashmir and bifurcate the state into two union territories.