Source: IBN News
By Lalit K Jha
Any engagement with Pakistan, be it by India or the US, is unlikely to yield result unless Pakistan abandons its policy of supporting terrorism as an instrument of state policy, senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley said here today. “My party’s position is that we fully endorse to what we had fully agreed with Pakistan in January 2004… that conditions precedent for any composite dialogue would be Pakistan not allowing its territory to be used for terror,” Jaitley told reporters. “There are others who still see virtues in engagement.The Government of India is at least at the level of Foreign Secretary is engaging them.
Some sections of the global community, the United States engages them,” he said in response to a question. “So our expectations from those who are in engagement that the principal purpose of engagement is to enforce what Pakistan has publicly stated. If we can’t state that then I will keep my fingers crossed with regard to the possible outcome of such an engagement,” Jaitley, the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha said.
Noting that Pakistan has not lived up to the commitment it made in January 2004 to not allow its territory to be used against India, Jaitley said: “We believe that for any engagement…. it is extremely important that Pakistan demonstrates that is now moving away from the traditional attitude it had and the role that it had in relation to encouragement to terror from within its own territory”. PTI LKJ