India and Pakistan national security advisers agree to reduce 'tension' along Line of Control
However, Pakistan's Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz maintained that India was 'deflecting attention of the world from the Kashmir issue'.
India and Pakistan's national security advisers on Monday reportedly agreed to "reduce tension" along the Line of Control, reported IANS. Pakistan’s Foreign Affairs Advisor to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Sartaj Aziz (pictured above), said that both Ajit Doval and his Pakistani counterpart Nasir Khan Janjua spoke to each other on the deteriorating ties between the two neighbours. "Both officials stressed on the need to establish contact to reduce tensions along the Line of Control," Aziz told Geo News.
He, however, said that Pakistan always wants to reduce tensions but it is India that is doing “the opposite to deflect the attention of the world from the Kashmir issue”. He added that Nawaz Sharif had also pointed out that “till the issue of Kashmir was not resolved, tensions across the border would remain”.
Meanwhile, the Pakistan prime minister is scheduled to hold an all-party meeting on Monday to decide their response to India following surgical strikes by the Indian Army last week. Pakistan Peoples Party spokesperson Qamar Zaman Kaira told Dawn, “The agenda of this meeting should be the ongoing tensions at the LoC and the potential response from Pakistan, particularly in the background of the Uri incident and Indian claims that it had carried out surgical strikes on alleged terrorist hideouts inside Pakistan.”
This comes a day after one Border Security Force officer was killed in Kashmir’s Baramulla when militants opened fire and hurled grenades at Rashtriya Rifles and BSF camps. Bilateral ties between India and Pakistan have deteriorated after an attack on an Indian Army camp in Uri, Kashmir, on September 18, and lndia launching surgical strikes across the LoC on September 28.
India has accused Islamabad of being involved in the Uri attack, while Pakistan has dismissed the allegations as baseless. Islamabad has also denied the surgical strikes and termed it as cross-border firing.