Pakistan high commissioner to India Abdul Basit has said the army has an important role to play in Islamabad's India policy and one should not expect otherwise.
Basit said the Pakistani army had important inputs to give on India, Afghanistan and all other security-related issues.
The diplomat, in an interview to the Times of India has asserted that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was in the "driving seat" in his country.
Basit “categorically” rejected the reports that Nawaz Sharif has warned the powerful army to crackdown on terrorists and directed authorities.
In an unprecedented move, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had warned the army in no uncertain terms to crackdown on terrorists and directed authorities to conclude the Mumbai attack trial and the probe into the Pathankot, a leading Pakistani daily reported on Thursday.
However, the Pakistan government dismissed as "not only speculative but misleading and factually incorrect" the Dawn report about the meeting on security issues.
Justifying the role of Pakistan Army in its Islamabad’s India policy, Basit said that even India could not have a Pakistan policy without consulting its armed forces.
The High Commissioner hinted that Pakistan was not going to concede any ground on Kashmir but said Islamabad did not want to have a dialogue on the issue "just for the heck of it".
His statement comes amid the heightened tension between the two countries after Uri attack and India’s subsequent surgical strikes in the Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK).
Pakistan’s oppositions leaders and even lawmakers from the ruling party have asked the Nawaz Sharif government to act against “non-state actors” like LeT founder Hafiz Saeed and Jaish-e-Mohammed leader Masood Azhar.
