Sartaj Aziz to visit India on August 23

Islamabad, August 13

Pakistan Prime Minister's Advisor on National Security and Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz will visit India on August 23 for first-ever NSA-level talks between the two countries, it was announced here on Thursday nearly a month after New Delhi proposed the dates.

The talks come in the backdrop of simmering tensions following terror attacks in Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir and incidents of ceasefire violations resulting in causalities.

"Yes, I can confirm it that I will be going to India on (August) 23rd for talks," he told reporters here.

India had proposed August 23-24 for the meeting between National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Aziz in New Delhi.

Aziz said the decision was taken after consultations.

Officials said that the decision to attend the meeting was taken after the final nod by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif who returned last night from his three-day visit to Belarus.

The decision to hold NSA-level talks was taken when the prime ministers of the two countries met in Ufa, Russia last month on the sidelines of SCO summit.

Last week, Aziz had said that Pakistan is preparing the agenda for talks.

He had said Pakistan wants a constructive, sustained, unconditional and result-oriented dialogue with India on all issues of mutual concern including the core issue of Kashmir.

A Foreign Office official had said that Pakistan is aware of India's agenda to highlight the issue of terrorism and planning is being done to counter it.

The talks between NSAs of the two countries come amid tensions at the Line of Control. There have been 19 ceasefire violations along the Indo-Pak border in July in which four persons, including three Indian soldiers, were killed.

Pakistani troops had targeted forward Indian posts along the LoC on multiple occasions in August also.

India has also claimed arresting a Pakistani national for carrying out an attack on Indian forces in Kashmir though Islamabad has denied that the attacks were perpetrated by terrorists who had infiltrated from its territory.

Earlier, the two countries had exchanged a war of words over a "spy" drone which Pakistan alleged was being used by India for aerial photography near the Line of Control (LoC), a claim dismissed by New Delhi. —PTI