New Delhi: Former union home secretary and BJP leader R.K. Singh on Monday voiced his apprehensions about the proposed talks taking place between the National Security Advisers (NSA) of India and Pakistan in the third week of August , and added that given the ongoing ceasefire violations from across the border, Islamabad cannot be trusted.
“Pakistan makes ceasefire violations to serve two purposes. First is to disrupt the peace talks with India and secondly to allow the terrorists to infiltrate. There is no benefit of having talks with Pakistan. They civilian government doesn’t have any control over ISI. The NSA or Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is not capable enough to say that terrorism will stop from tomorrow onwards,” Singh told ANI here.
“Even if the ISI or the Pakistan Army confirms that they would stop terrorism, even though we would not be able to trust them. Pakistan is not a country that could be trusted, especially when they betray their own allies,” he added. Singh further said that Pakistan knows only one language, which is the language of power. “Pakistan is not only a problem for us, but for the entire world,” he added.
Commenting on the NSA-level talks scheduled to take place on August 23 and 24, the former home secretary said, “There is no benefit of having talks with Pakistan because this will only provide their government an opportunity to increase their credibility among the citizens. I don’t think that merely having talks would bring an end to terrorism.”
According to sources, India and Pakistan are likely to hold their first NSA-level dialogue on August 23 and 24. Reports suggest that the government is awaiting Pakistan’s response before making an official announcement in this regard. This follows the meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart on the sidelines of the SCO Summit in Ufa, Russia, last month.
