{"id":3184,"date":"2019-05-20T07:15:10","date_gmt":"2019-05-20T07:15:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/?p=3184"},"modified":"2019-05-20T07:15:10","modified_gmt":"2019-05-20T07:15:10","slug":"pakistan-may-appoint-nsa-to-resume-talks-with-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/?p=3184","title":{"rendered":"Pakistan may appoint NSA to resume talks with India"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Delhi,\u00a0<\/strong>The Imran Khan-led Pakistan government is actively considering appointing a National Security Advisor to revive backchannel diplomacy with India to iron out issues hindering the resumption of peace talks between the two nuclear-armed neighbours, official sources said.<\/p>\n

Since assuming the office in August last year, Prime Minister Imran Khan repeatedly reached out to India for the resumption of peace talks on all outstanding issues.<\/p>\n

But India has made it clear to Pakistan that terrorism and dialogue will not go hand-in-hand.<\/p>\n

The likely appointment of the NSA is meant for reviving the backchannel diplomacy with India to sort out some of the pressing issues between the two nuclear-armed neighbours, the official sources privy to the development was quoted as saying by the Express Tribune.<\/p>\n

A senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the government was likely to appoint a retired military official as the National Security Advisor (NSA).<\/p>\n

He said certain names were under consideration but no final decision has been taken yet.<\/p>\n

The relationship between the two neighbouring nations currently is at all-time low after a Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) suicide bomber attacked a CRPF convoy in Pulwama in Jammu and Kashmir on February 14 that killed 40 soldiers.<\/p>\n

Amid mounting outrage, the Indian Air Force (IAF) carried out a counter-terror operation, hitting what it said was a JeM training camp in Balakot, deep inside Pakistan on February 26.<\/p>\n

The next day, the PAF retaliated and downed a MiG-21 in an aerial combat and captured IAF Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, who was later released and handed over to India on March 1.<\/p>\n

Now, with the almost two-month long election exercise getting over, the Pakistan government is considering options on how to resume talks with India.<\/p>\n

Pakistan believes that the new government in India after the general elections would be more receptive to Khan’s offer of peace talks.<\/p>\n

When asked about the prospects of resumption of talks given the current hostilities, the official said Pakistan was optimistic.<\/p>\n

The reason for this optimism stems from the fact that new government, whether it is formed by the ruling BJP or the Congress, is unlikely to follow the pre-election rhetoric, he said.<\/p>\n

One of the options include the appointment of the NSA to revive the backchannel with India.<\/p>\n

In the past, the two countries often used backchannel through the NSAs to prepare ground for any talks.<\/p>\n

In 2015, Pakistan’s NSA Lt General (retd) Naseer Khan Janjua and his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval were instrumental in breaking the ice.<\/p>\n

The two held meetings in Bangkok leading to the agreement between the two foreign ministers for the resumption of the composite dialogue.<\/p>\n

The leadership of the two countries used their respective NSAs to communicate on important issues.<\/p>\n

Talking to foreign journalists last month, Khan had said that there might be a better chance of peace talks with India if Modi returned to power.<\/p>\n

“If the next Indian government is led by the opposition Congress party, it might be too scared to seek a settlement with Pakistan over Indian-occupied Kashmir (IoK), fearing a backlash from the right,” the prime minister told a small group of foreign journalists in an interview.<\/p>\n

“Perhaps if the BJP \u2013 a right wing party \u2014 wins, some kind of settlement on Kashmir could be reached.”<\/p>\n

Khan’s statement stirred a heated debate both in Pakistan as well as in India, where Modi’s opponents mocked him as Pakistan’s ally.<\/p>\n

In Pakistan, opposition parties criticised Khan for making an ‘undiplomatic statement’ and also supporting Modi despite his hostile policies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New Delhi,\u00a0The Imran Khan-led Pakistan government is actively considering appointing a National Security Advisor to revive backchannel diplomacy with India to iron out issues hindering the resumption of peace talks between the two nuclear-armed neighbours, official sources said. Since assuming the office in August last year, Prime Minister Imran Khan repeatedly reached out to India […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3185,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3184","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-international"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3184"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3186,"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3184\/revisions\/3186"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}