Pakistan would no longer seek dialogue with India: PM Imran khan

NEW YORK: Deploring lack of any response to his repeated offers of dialogue to India before and after the Aug. 5 crackdown in occupied Kashmir, Prime Minister Imran Khan has said he would no longer seek dialogue with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi, whom he accused of harbouring intentions to change the demographic character of the Muslim-majority region.

“There is no point in talking to them. I mean, I have done all the talking. Unfortunately, now when I look back, all the overtures that I was making for peace and dialogue, I think they took it for appeasement,” he said in an interview with The New York Times at the Prime Minister’s office in Islamabad.

“There is nothing more that we can do,” he added.

The newspaper's correspondent, Salman Masood, wrote that his interview was the Pakistani leader's first with an international news organization aimed at projecting Islamabad's  anger over the grave situation in Kashmir stemming from India's annexation of the disputed state — "and it appeared to reflect his frustration at what he views as India’s intransigence."

The Times noted that PM Khan has repeatedly denounced India’s Hindu nationalist government for terminating the autonomy of Kashmir in an abrupt move. India, it noted, deployed thousands of troops to quell any possible unrest and severed nearly all communications in the poor Himalayan region, the flash point for two wars between India and Pakistan.

The newspaper pointed out that the prime minister and his cabinet ministers have likened the New Delhi government to Nazi Germany and asserted that a genocide is unfolding in the territory.

PM Khan described Modi as a fascist and Hindu supremacist who intends to eradicate Kashmir’s mostly Muslim population and populate the region with Hindus.

“The most important thing is that eight million people’s lives are at risk. We are all worried that there is ethnic cleansing and genocide about to happen,” the Pakistani leader said.

Imran Khan spoke to The Times a day after he said he spoke by phone with President Donald Trump and told him of a “potentially very explosive situation” between his country and India.

Last month, PM Khan visited Washington and met with Trump, who said he would be willing to mediate the conflict. His offer was welcomed by PM Khan but has not been accepted by India.

Trump reiterated his offer on Tuesday, telling NBC News: “I’ll do the best I can to mediate or do something.”

In the interview, Khan expressed concern that India might undertake a deceptive “false-flag operation” in Kashmir to try to justify military action against Pakistan. And Pakistan, he said, would be forced to respond.

“And then you are looking at two nuclear-armed countries eyeball to eyeball, and anything can happen,” he said. “My worry is that this can escalate and for two nuclear-armed countries, it should be alarming for the world what we are facing now.”

Shortly after taking office last summer, the Times pointed out that PM Khan reached out to India in an attempt to revive talks between the countries on a wide range of issues, including Kashmir. But Indian officials rejected PM Khan’s efforts with a longstanding response that they will negotiate only after Pakistan cuts ties to militant groups. Pakistan denies it has links to such groups.

"With Pakistani-Indian relations in crisis, it is difficult to see how, in the foreseeable future, the countries can resume the on-again, off-again talks that have punctuated their relationship since they were partitioned in 1947," the Times said.

PM Khan demanded that United Nations peacekeepers and observers be allowed in Indian-occupied Kashmir as he repeatedly insisted during the interview that Modi intended to carry out a genocide of Kashmiri Muslims.