‘Pakistan has learnt its lesson’: PM Shahbaz Sharif offers olive branch to India, calls for peace
With terror-related violence on the rise in Pakistan since the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) broke a ceasefire with security forces in late November, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has called for a “critical and honest talk” with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on “burning points like Kashmir,” news agency ANI reported.
Sharif stated in an interview with the Dubai-based Arabic news television channel Al Arabiya that the three wars with India have “only added to the people’s distress, poverty, and unemployment.”
“My message to the Indian management and PM Modi is that allow us sit down on the desk and have critical and honest talks to resolve our burning points like Kashmir. It’s as much as us to stay peacefully and make progress or quarrel with one another, and waste time and assets,” the Pakistani prime minister said.
“We now have three wars with India and it solely introduced extra distress, poverty and unemployment to the individuals. We now have learnt our lesson and we wish to stay in peace, but for that we should be capable of resolving our real issues,” he added.
The Pakistan Muslim League (N) leader went on to say that both countries have nuclear weapons and are well-armed. “God forbids, if a warfare breaks out, who will stay to tell what had happened”.
Sharif’s remark was made at a time when Pakistan has been severely impacted by an uptick in terrorism-related incidents, a dismal economy, and growing political instability. When compared to the same period in 2021, the inflows of foreign direct investment fell by more than 50 per cent, totaling $430 million for the period of July through November 2022.
Pakistan is also experiencing political unrest, with ousted Prime Minister Imran Khan claiming that President Dr Arif Alvi will soon request a vote of confidence from Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. Dr. Alvi is a member of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), and the federal coalition is surviving on a razor’s edge.
In November 2022, India criticised Pakistan at the UN debate for bringing up the Kashmir issue, calling it “desperate attempts to peddle falsehoods.”
Pratik Mathur, Counsellor in India’s Permanent Mission to the UN, had said: “Jammu and Kashmir, let me repeat once again for his benefit, remains an integral and inalienable part of India, irrespective of what the representative of Pakistan believes or covets. Pakistan’s desperate attempts to peddle falsehoods and a bad habit of abusing the sanctity of multilateral forums deserve our collective contempt and perhaps some sympathy as well.”
