India calls off meeting with Pakistan; cites killings

NEW DELHI: The Modi government’s decision to cancel a foreign ministerlevel meeting with Pakistan less than 24 hours of announcing it appears to have been driven by domestic political compulsions and assessment that the Imran Khan administration would largely be guided by the Pak army that wants to break isolation through dialogue with India.

While there was a sense in the international community that breaking of ice between India and Pakistan would lead to stability in South Asia, the local establishment felt efforts to normalise ties amid rising casualty of soldiers along the borders may cast a shadow on the election discourse as some key states are going to polls in the coming months.

Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, which send troopers and police to central forces in substantial numbers, will have assembly polls later this year.


The Pakistan government is making efforts to break international isolation, as well as appease the US amid the Trump administration’s tough measures against Islamabad.

Attempts to reach out to India in the early days of the Imran Khan government is part of those efforts, sources said. The move has the stamp of the Pak army, whose track record is abysmal — this is the assessment of the security establishment here.

Experts also feel that the Modi government may not want to take yet another risk amid challenges over CAATSA (Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act) and Iranian oil exports.

“Since yesterday’s (Thursday’s) announcement of a meeting between the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan in New York later this month, two deeply disturbing developments have taken place,” the Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement announcing the cancellation of the meeting.

“The latest brutal killings of our security personnel by Pakistanbased entities and the recent release of a series of twenty postage stamps by Pakistan glorifying a terrorist and terrorism confirm that Pakistan will not mend its ways,” it said.

The New York meeting between Sushma Swaraj and Shah Mehmood Qureshi would have been India’s first concrete engagement with the Imran Khan government.

The decision to agree to Islamabad’s proposal for a meeting between the foreign ministers was in response to the spirit reflected in letters from the new Pakistan PM and his foreign minister, the MEA statement said. The letter from Imran Khan had spoken of, inter alia, bringing a positive change and mutual desire for peace as also readiness to discuss terrorism, the statement added.