No talks with those training guns at India: VP rejects Dialogue with Pak

JAMMU: Hitting out at those suggesting dialogue with Pakistan in the wake of terrorist attacks in Jammu and Kashmir, Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu on Thursday said that talks with countries who train guns at India are not possible.

The statement from Vice President has come in the aftermath of three terror attacks in the state in the span of four days, following which Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti had suggested talks with Pakistan to be necessary to end bloodshed in the state, even as security forces were facing fire in Srinagar.

While the vice-president refrained from taking any names, he did not mince any words while taking a pot-shot at those advocating the dialogue with Pakistan.

"It is baffling that some educated leaders are suggesting that we have to engage in a dialogue with one of our neighbours who is by all accounts fomenting trouble and encouraging cross-border terrorism,” Naidu slammed those for the talks with the enemy nation.

“We can’t have talks with countries that have trained their guns at us," Naidu said without naming Pakistan, while addressing a gathering at the Indian Council of World Affairs in Union Capital New Delhi.

Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists have barged in the Sunjwan Military Camp on Saturday morning killing seven persons including six soldiers.

While Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday had asserted that Pakistan will have to pay the price for the "misadventure" addressing a presser in Jammu, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti had on same day, pitched afresh for a dialogue between India and Pakistan to end the violence in the restive state.

“For how long shall the people continue to die and for how long shall we be laying wreaths?”, she had said asserting that there was no alternative to resolve the issue except by holding talks.

"Dialogue with Pakistan is necessary if we are to end bloodshed. We have to talk because war is not an option," she had later tweeted.
All this had unfolded even as a gunfight raged between terrorists and security forces in Srinagar in which one CRPF jawan was martyred the same day.

Naidu on Thursday also made clear that India is not weak or incapable in countering attacks, save for its concern for peace.

“India’s love for peace is more out of a concern for the welfare of humanity and not because it is weak and incapable of fighting,” he asserted.

"So, our diplomacy relies on building bridges across the world with dialogue as the sole sustainable method to resolve disputes.

"We are open to conflicting views but we are not so open to senseless violence and irrational terrorism...we have been the pioneers in the non-aligned movement. Our alignment is with the forces of peace and non-violence," he said.