Pakistan tells New Delhi: Cooperate as our courts will deliver justice to Kulbhushan Jadhav

ISLAMABAD: The Foreign Office Thursday asked New Delhi to keep in mind that only the Pakistani courts had to deliver justice to the convicted RAW agent Kulbhushan Jadhav and it should cooperate with them rather than insisting on its “insane” and “illogical” demands.

Speaking at the weekly press briefing here, the Foreign Office spokesman Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri recalled that Pakistan had twice provided “unimpeded and uninterrupted” consular access to Jadhav besides an offer extended for a third access as well.

Speaking about Pakistan’s struggle to get off the grey list of the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the spokesman said the Force had acknowledged Pakistan’s political commitment and progress in a number of areas of the Action Plan. The substantial progress made by Pakistan includes steps in legislative, regulatory and operational domains. “We are committed to and moving towards completion of the Action Plan. We remain engaged with the process.

The process of FATF is ongoing. Pakistan has been implementing the Action Plan since 2018 making significant progress in this regard. Our entire AML/CFT regime has been revamped in compliance with the Action Plan to bring it on a par with the international standards set by the FATF,” explained the spokesman.

Responding to New Delhi’s criticism of Pak-China relations, the spokesman said the government strongly condemned the malicious Indian propaganda against the long-standing and close Pakistan-China friendship.

“This propaganda is a manifestation of the Indian government’s incurable obsession with Pakistan and its desperate attempts to mislead the world community,” said Mr Chaudhri. Pakistan and China, he added, were joined together in a broad-based, long-term all-weather strategic cooperative partnership,” he said.

“Our cooperation is an anchor for regional peace and stability. We have always stood by each other through difficult times and have supported each other on core national issues,” he said. He said the international community was aware that political opportunism of the RSS-BJP regime was imperiling peace, stability and security of the region.

Referring to the recent interview of Dr. Moeed Yusuf, SAPM on National Security and Strategic Policy Planning, to an Indian media outlet, the spokesman reiterated that Pakistan had repeatedly been saying that the onus was on India to create an enabling environment by rescinding its illegal and unilateral actions, ending its state-terrorism against the Kashmiri people, and agreeing to resolve the Jammu & Kashmir dispute in accordance with the relevant UN Security Council resolutions and the wishes of the people of Kashmir.

“Pakistan has consistently maintained that there can be no resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute without letting the Kashmiris exercise their inalienable right to self-determination as enshrined in the relevant UNSC resolutions,” he pointed out.

The way forward, said the spokesman, was that Pakistan as a peace-loving nation wanted to forge peaceful relations with all its neighboring countries; however, the onus of creating an enabling environment is on India.

To this end, India must rescind the measures it has instituted since 5 August 2019, end its military siege and other gross human rights violations, and agree to resolve the Jammu & Kashmir dispute in accordance with the relevant UN Security Council resolutions and the wishes of the people of Kashmir,” said the spokesman.