ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan Thursday said he was ready to hold talks with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi.
Khan’s remarks came a day after External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj categorically ruled out possibility of holding talks with Pakistan unless it stops cross-border militant activities.
“It is not in our interest to allow use of Pakistan’s territory for terror outside,” Khan, who is celebrating 100 days of his government Thursday, said during an interaction with a group of Indian journalists here.
Khan said that people in Pakistan want peace with India and he will be happy to meet Modi and talk to him on any issue.
“I am ready for talks on any issue. There can’t be a military solution for Kashmir,” he said, adding “nothing is impossible” when asked whether it is possible to resolve the Kashmir issue.
“The mindset of people here has changed,” Khan said, a day after he laid the foundation-stone for the Kartarpur corridor that will connect Darbar Sahib in Pakistan’s Kartarpur – the final resting place of Sikh faith’s founder Guru Nanak Dev – with Dera Baba Nanak shrine in India’s Gurdaspur district and facilitate visa-free movement of Indian Sikh pilgrims to Kartarpur.
Pakistan is projecting the corridor as a goodwill gesture.
“The India I know – majority must be appreciating it,” Khan told the Indian journalists who had arrived in Pakistan to cover the groundbreaking ceremony of the corridor.
He, however, said the gesture for peace cannot be one-sided.
“We are willing to wait for (general) elections to get over in India for a gesture from New Delhi,” Khan said, referring to the Lok Sabha elections scheduled for next year.
On punishing Jamat-ud Dawah (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed, who is carrying a USD 10 million US bounty, Khan said, “there are UN sanctions against Hafiz Saeed. There is already a clampdown on him.”
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