Pakistan PM Shehbaz Sharif seeks talks with India on all issues, including Kashmir

Pakistan wants to resolve all issues, including Kashmir, through dialogue with India, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Wednesday.

Sharif's peace overture came while he was addressing a special session of Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK) Assembly in Muzaffarabad on "Kashmir Solidarity Day", an annual Pakistani event to show support for the Kashmiris.

"We want all issues, including Kashmir, to be resolved through talks," he said.

Sharif said that "India should come out of the thinking of August 5, 2019, and fulfil promises made to the UN and launch a dialogue". His remarks were in reference to scrapping of Article 370 that revoked Jammu and Kashmir's special status and bifurcated the state into two Union Territories.

New Delhi has repeatedly told Islamabad that Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh "was, is and shall forever" remain an integral part of the country. The already strained



bilateral ties nosedived after India abrogated Article 370.

Sharif said the only way for India and Pakistan to repair their strained ties was dialogue, as mentioned in the Lahore Declaration of 1999, which was signed when then-Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee visited Pakistan.

India has made it clear that it would want normal neighbourly relations with Pakistan in an environment free of terror, hostility and violence.

Sharif accused India of accumulating weapons and asserted that it would not bring peace in the region. He said India should be "wise" and the only way to move forward was peace.

He asserted that the only solution to the Kashmir issue was "the right of self-determination" under UN resolution.

Pakistan has time and again raised Kashmir at the UN, but it failed to get wider UN membership that considers the matter to be a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan.