NEW DELHI: India will engage with Pakistan diplomatically in future but the date and time of any such engagement will be of the Centre’s choosing, foreign secretary S Jaishankar told a parliamentary panel.
When asked by members if India wants to resume dialogue with its hostile western neighbour from the position of advantage after the surgical strike inside the Pak territory, Jaishankar answered positively.
“We had been engaging with Pakistan and will do so in future. But right now, we don’t have any fixed calendar even for talks at the secretary-level,” he told the panel.
Jaishankar also claimed that army strikes on militant bases in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir last month had given Islamabad a taste of what India was capable of, sources said.
Jaishankar said: “People-to-people contact would continue and there was no plan to stop it,” the country’s media reported.
Army vice-chief lieutenant general Bipin Rawat — who briefed the panel members — remained non-committal about submitting proof of surgical strikes “Our boys went for a swift, time-bound operation. They were given specific targets but not told to collect evidence,” he said. “However, we are trying to collate some proof.” The government had previously said that the army had submitted proof of the operation.
