India can boycott but will not invite Jammu & Kashmir Assembly Speaker: Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Refusing to budge from its stand, Pakistan has said come what may it will not invite the Speaker of the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference here and if India boycotts the meeting it is "their choice".

Pakistan will not invite the speaker of the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly to the (CPC) (next month). The assembly of Kashmir is not legitimate so we will not accept it, National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq said yesterday.

"If India does not attend the conference, because of the Kashmir issue, it is their choice. We cannot budge from our stand," he said.

Pakistan has invited the Speakers of the Indian Parliament and the state assemblies but has refused to invite Jammu and Kashmir Assembly Speaker Kavinder Gupta.

India has threatened to boycott the conference, to be held in Islamabad from September 30 to October 8.

Sadiq was quoted by Dawn News as saying that come what may, Pakistan will budge from its stand. He said Pakistan's position on Jammu and Kashmir was clear.

Sadiq said the Kashmir issue was on the UN agenda and had been an "unsettled dispute" since 1947.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's Special Adviser on Foreign Affairs and National Security Sartaj Aziz last week had said Pakistan will not invite the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly Speaker as it would compromise its position on the Kashmir issue.