No talks with India untill curfew is lifted in Kashmir: Pakistan PM Imran Khan

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday said that there will be no bilateral talks with India until the Narendra Modi government lifts “curfew” in Jammu and Kashmir.

The fresh statement from the Pakistan PM came a day after New Delhi maintained that there is no curfew in Jammu and Kashmir, which is now a Union Territory of India.

The Centre on August 5 through a presidential order scrapped Article 370, which provided for Jammu and Kashmir’s special status.

Virtually ruling out talks on Kashmir with Pakistan, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar had said on Tuesday that revocation of Article 370 is purely an internal issue and the only issue India would discuss with Pakistan is of terrorism.

To a question on talking Kashmir with Pakistan, he said, "370 is not a bilateral issue, 370 is an internal issue. With regard to Pakistan, the issue is not 370, the issue with Pakistan is terrorism."

He said there is no change in India`s policy on Pakistan.

Importantly, US President Donald Trump had said that he will meet both Indian and Pakistani leaders in the next few days while claiming that “a lot of progress is being made” in defusing tensions between South Asia’s two nuclear-armed neighbours.

“I’ll see Prime Minister Modi and I will - we’ll -  be meeting with (prime ministers of) India and Pakistan,” Trump said, adding, “And I think a lot of progress is being made there, a lot of progress.”

Trump made these remarks on Monday afternoon while responding to a question about a joint rally which PM Modi and he are scheduled to address in Houston, Texas, on September 22.