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India urges Pakistan to agree to agreed framework for security talks

India gives Pakistan hours to comply with an agreed framework on security talks or cancel the talks altogether.

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Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj (Photo by AFP)

India has issued an ultimatum urging Pakistan to comply with an agreed framework for high-level security talks between the two countries or have the talks entirely canceled.

India’s Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj said Saturday that Islamabad had until “tonight” to accept a previously agreed agenda for talks between the two countries’ national security advisers.

The high-profile meeting, planned for Sunday, was agreed to include discussions of terrorism-related issues. However, a new row emerged between the two nuclear-armed neighbors over plans by Pakistani officials to also meet leaders of a Kashmiri independence movement and an intention for broadening the scope of the discussions.

The original agenda came last month when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pakistan’s Premier Nawaz Sharif met for an entire hour in the Russian city of Ufa in what was described as a thaw between the two arch-rivals.

Swaraj said that the ultimatum should not be interpreted by Pakistan as setting pre-conditions for talks as India was “only insisting on what was agreed to as agenda by both countries’ leaders.”

Pakistan’s National Security Adviser Sartaj Aziz said that the planned meeting for Sunday is virtually canceled, but that he is still inclined to meet his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval despite New Delhi’s objection to a meeting between the Pakistani diplomat and leaders of the Hurriyat movement in the Indian capital.

Aziz said he is still prepared to go to New Delhi for talks  "without any preconditions,” adding that Indian media have created a controversy out of nothing saying, “As always, India has been conducting a part of its diplomacy through the Indian media.”

Talks were canceled last year over a similar meeting on Kashmir that outraged Indian officials.

Since gaining independence in 1947, India and Pakistan have fought two wars over the Himalayan region, and the issue continues to remain a major bone of contention between the two sides.