Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry, while commenting on recent inflammatory remarks made by the Indian army chief, on Monday said that Pakistan and India can either "infiltrate and weaken each other" or "try to convince each other".
He asserted that no discussion between Pakistan and India would be carried out without the mention of Kashmir, "which has always been the bone of contention between India and Pakistan".
"One way to go about this issue is to infiltrate each other's country and weaken it. But a better way to do this is to try and convince each other [towards peace]," the information minister said while pointing out that the two countries have been fighting fruitlessly for the past 70 years.
"Prime Minister Imran Khan's vision is to provide better living opportunities for the people of Pakistan and India, and bring them above the poverty line. Everyone knows that countries do not succeed, it's the regions which do," Chaudhry said.
"The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor will bring an economic boom [in the region]. Pakistan finds itself between two big markets — India and China," the minister observed.
"However, if India continues with this behaviour, we know how to respond in kind," the information minister said while commenting on the recent rise in hostility from the Indian government, which started with the cancellation of a meeting between Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and his Indian counterpart Sushma Swaraj.
"Indian Prime Minister Modi has been accused of taking 8-10 billion in bribes, and the incumbent government there [in India] wants to divert the focus of its people from this issue," the information minister said, while touching upon the recent headlines surrounding the allegations of corruption against the Indian prime minister in a military jet deal with France after former French president Francois Hollande was quoted as saying New Delhi had influenced the choice of a local partner.
"Pakistan will not be affected by India's internal affairs," Chaudhry said, adding that "India is losing its grip on the occupied Kashmir".
