NEW DELHI: India issued an ultimatum to Pakistan Saturday, giving Islamabad until midnight to agree to restrict high-level bilateral talks to militancy alone, leaving a planned meeting between the two countries’ national security advisers in doubt.

The talks, which were due to have taken place in New Delhi on Sunday, have been thrown into question after a row between the two arch-rivals over Pakistan’s plan to meet with Kashmiri separatists leaders and desire to broaden the scope of the talks.

India’s Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj told reporters on Saturday that Pakistan had until “tonight” to agree to an agenda that was restricted to discussions of “terror, and terror only.”

Swaraj insisted India was not setting “pre-conditions for talks but only insisting on what was agreed to as agenda by both countries’ leaders for the NSAs meet,” referring to a meeting between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pakistan’s Nawaz Sharif in the Russian city of Ufa last month.

Asked what would happen if Pakistan did not agree to India’s demands regarding the agenda of the talks, Swaraj replied: “Then talks won’t happen.”

Swaraj’s remarks came just hours after Pakistan’s National Security Adviser Sartaj Aziz insisted he was ready to meet his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval, despite India’s foreign ministry saying it would be inappropriate for the Pakistani diplomat to meet with the Hurriyat separatist movement while in the Indian capital.

India canceled talks with Pakistan last year between the two countries’ foreign secretaries, outraged over a similar meeting that took place, a move that set back already tense relations between the nuclear-armed neighbors.

“On my part, I am still prepared to go to New Delhi for NSA talks without any preconditions,” Aziz said, accusing the Indian media of creating a controversy out of nothing.

Aziz claimed Delhi had “virtually canceled” Sunday’s talks, and added: “As always, India has been conducting a part of its diplomacy through the Indian media.”

Pakistan and India have fought two of their three wars over the Himalayan region since both gained independence in 1947, and it remains a major source of tension.

But the hour-long talks between Modi and Sharif in Ufa last month had been seen as a new thaw in ties between the countries.

The leaders agreed then that their top security officials would meet to “discuss all issues connected to terrorism,” in a resumption of talks between their officials.