While India has been making repeated attempts to bring Pakistan to the talking table the neighbour has been playing games to avoid any fruitful engagements, details of the engagements accessed by CNN-IBN on Wednesday showed.
Sources said that during the visit of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to Pakistan in December 2015, the language of the Indo-Pak joint statement on terror was altered after insistence from Pakistani side.
According to sources, the draft proposed by India had put the onus of terror in stronger terms on Pakistan and the country’s Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, had in fact agreed with India’s version.
However, Pakistan National Security Advisor Naseer Janjua is learnt to have demanded that the language on terror must be altered to balance the statement.
Following this development, Swaraj was "advised" by some diplomats to abandon the joint statement, but India eventually agreed with Pakistan on the language of statement just to keep talks between the two countries alive.
It was after this confusion that the joint statement announced a comprehensive bilateral dialogue, said sources.
The revelations come just a day after former US envoy to India, Robert Blackwill, hit out at Pakistan doublespeak, saying the country had been lying to US on foreign policy issues for years. He had termed the US policy on Pakistan as "bizarre", adding that the country “is rarely honest".
He had further conceded that US "makes same mistakes with Pakistan again and again", adding that the “same process is repeated by every American administration".
In December, after a high level meeting with Pakistan's Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz in Islamabad, Sushma had issued a joint press conference with him and announced that foreign secretaries of both the countries would meet and discuss the modalities to hold the bilateral dialogue.
"Both sides, agreed to a comprehensive bilateral dialogue and directed the foreign secretaries to work out the modalities and schedule meetings under the dialogue including peace and security, confidence and security building measures, Jammu & Kashmir, Siachen, Sir Creek, Wullar Barrage/Tulbul Navigation Project, economic and commercial cooperation, narcotic control, humanitarian issues, people to people exchange and religious tourism," a statement issued by the MEA had said.
"They (Sushma and Aziz) condemned terrorism and resolved to cooperate to eliminate it. They noted the successful talks on terrorism and security related issues in Bangkok by the two NSAs and decided that NSAs will continue to address all issues related to terrorism," it further said.
Swaraj was in Pakistan to hold bilateral talks with the Pakistani leadership. She had also attended the 'Heart of Asia' 5th Ministerial Meeting on Afghanistan held in Islamabad.
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