Environment which must exist for talks has been successfully prevented by Pakistan: Arun Jaitley

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New Delhi: Defence Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday accused Pakistan of scuttling the environment that must exist for bilateral talks between the two neighbours.

At the same time, he asserted that Kashmir situation was better than was being perceived

He further said that while India has taken several significant steps to ease tension, Pakistan responded by terror attacks at Pathankot, Uri and mutilating the bodies of Indian soldiers.

"The government of India has taken significant steps to ease the situation in the past... The fact that our Prime Minister dropped in at Lahore at a social function in Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's family, were all steps intended to ease the tension. But each one of these have been responded by, let us say, a Pathankot or a Uri or by mutilation of two of our soldiers. And, therefore, that environment which must exist for a talk has been successfully prevented by Pakistan," Jaitley said, as per PTI.

Addressing the media on completion of three years of the PM Modi government, Jaitley said the Indian Army and the BSF are "dominating" the Line of Control (LoC) irrespective of where the troubles are being created by foreign insurgents or domestic terrorists.

"The security forces have been able to build up a lot of pressure on them, and the results, some of which are evident almost on a daily basis... The situation in Kashmir is better than the impression," he said.

The Indian Army had last week said it launched "punitive fire assaults" on Pakistani positions across the LoC, inflicting "some damage", days after two of Indian soldiers were beheaded.

It had also released a video of the military action which showed some structures in a forested area crumbling in a heap under the impact of repeated shelling.

Admitting that the situation in challenging in South Kashmir, he said it is normal in the rest of the state and recently the two-day meeting of the GST Council was held in Srinagar.

Meanwhile, two militants who were holed up in a house at Sopore in Jammu and Kashmir's Baramulla district were killed in an encounter with security forces today.

Security forces had launched a cordon-and-search operation in Natipora area of Sopore at around 3:30 am after receiving information about the presence of militants there, a police official said.

During the searches, the two militants opened fire on the forces, triggering the gun-battle, he said

(With PTI inputs)