A day after Adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz confirmed Pakistan's participation in next month's Heart of Asia and Istanbul Process ministerial meeting in Amritsar, India, a marked division between parliamentary parties on the country's participation in the meeting has emerged. In an anecdotal survey conducted by Business Recorder the day after the Quetta massacre that left more than 60 dead coupled with escalation at Line of Control (LoC) and Working Boundary, political parties particularly Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) argued in favour of skipping the meeting in India.
"We should not attend the meeting as we already know that India does want peace in Afghanistan but is using Afghan soil for launching terror activities against Pakistan", said Dr Arif Alvi, a senior leader of the PTI. He maintained that India was only playing the Afghanistan card in a bid to impose its hegemony in South Asia which is 'wishful thinking as Pakistan will never accept it'.
"Our policymakers must understand the dirty game India is playing inside Afghanistan and its sole purpose is to use Afghan territory for hatching conspiracies against Pakistan," he said. Alvi stated this while referencing Balochistan's Home Minister Sarfaraz Bugti's accusation that the attackers of the Quetta police training center were taking instructions from their handlers across the border from Afghanistan.
Earlier on Monday, Sartaj Aziz told reporters that Pakistan will participate in the Heart of Asia and Istanbul Process ministerial meeting to be held in the first week of December in Amritsar. "Our participation will be at the ministerial level," Aziz added. Pakistan People's Party (PPP) spokesman Farhatullah Babar, while talking to Business Recorder, said that the doors of dialogue and negotiation should not be closed and any available opportunity should be availed.
"We are telling the world that we want negotiation. If we refuse to talk [to neighbours], it will be a negation of our public posture and if we are going to attend the meeting [Heart of Asia], we will actually be in a position to tell the world that even in this adverse circumstances, we have not slammed the doors of negotiation," he said while backing the government decision.
Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) parliamentary leader in Senate, Colonel Tahir Hussain Mashhadi (Retd) backed the government's decision to attend the meeting, maintaining that Pakistan must proceed and expose India's nefarious motives through world forums like the Heart of Asia ministerial meeting.
"Pakistan must not skip this important regional meeting on Afghanistan. No matter wherever the meeting will be held...We can proactively use this platform for exposing India's dirty game-playing on Afghan soil," the MQM Senator said. Refusing to attend the meeting in response to India's bid to sabotage a recent SAARC Summit in Islamabad would not to be a wise decision, he added.
The 19th SAARC Summit scheduled for November 9-10 in Islamabad was postponed after India announced its boycott in the wake of Uri attack in which 19 Indian soldiers were killed. Pakistan had deplored India's decision to impede the SAARC process by not attending the summit and accused New Delhi of using the important regional platform for diverting attention away from its atrocities in held Kashmir.