Pakistani NSA to attend SCO conference, no planned meeting with Indian counterpart

Pakistan's National Security Adviser Moeed Yusuf addressing a conference Center for Global and Strategic Studies in Islamabad on December 19, 2019. (Photo courtesy: Moeed Yusuf twitter)

• Both officials will be participating in a meeting of national security advisers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s member states in Dushanbe this week
• Islamabad has maintained it will hold dialogue with New Delhi only if it restored Kashmir’s original status

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s National Security Adviser Moeed Yusuf will not be holding talks with his India counterpart on the sidelines of a Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) event in Tajikistan later this week, state-run news agency, the Associated Press of Pakistan, said on Saturday.
Yusuf will leave for Tajikistan today to participate in a meeting of national security advisers of the SCO’s member states in the capital city, Dushanbe, from June 22-23, his office said on Saturday. 
During the visit, Yusuf is expected to meet the NSAs of Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and China, but not India’s Ajit Doval. 
Doval had walked out of the virtual session of the SCO meeting last year after Yusuf reportedly projected a map that inaccurately depicted the two countries’ borders. 
The two nuclear-armed neighbors both control parts of Kashmir but claim it in full.
In August 2019, India withdrew India-ruled Kashmir’s autonomy to tighten its grip over the territory, sparking outrage in Pakistan. The move also resulted in the downgrading of diplomatic ties and the suspension of bilateral trade between the two nations.
Since then, Pakistan has maintained that it would be ready for talks with India only if it restored Kashmir’s original status.
On Saturday, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi underlined that “durable peace in South Asia can only be achieved by peacefully resolving the Jammu and Kashmir dispute” as per the United Nations Security Council’s resolutions and the “wishes of the Kashmiri people.”
Kashmir has been a flashpoint since India and Pakistan gained independence from British rule in 1947, with both countries fighting two wars over the region. Pakistan accuses India of rights violations in Kashmir, and India says Pakistan supports militants in its part of the region. Both deny the charges.
Established in 2001, the SCO is an intergovernmental organization comprising China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.