Govt slams Pak for making false claims about India's desire for talks

<p id="content"> India yesterday slammed Pakistan for making fictitious claims that New Delhi has approached Islamabad for talks.</p>
Recently, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan's special assistant on national security and strategic policy planning, Moeed Yusuf, said in an interview with an Indian journalist said that India has sent a message to Pakistan with "a desire for conversation".

In his weekly briefing, the spokesperson of the Union Ministry of External Affairs, Anurag Srivastava, said that he had seen reports on the interview by the senior Pakistani official to an Indian media outlet.

"As regards the purported message, let me make it clear that no such message was sent from our side," he said.

India-Pakistan relations have been at its lowest ebb since the Uri terror attack in 2016. After the Pulwama suicide bombing by the Pakistan sponsored Jaish-e-Mohammad terror group in February 2019, which resulted in the killing of 40 CRPF troopers, the relations went into a tailspin.

Moeen Yusuf has "commented on India's internal matters", Srivastava said, adding, "as always, this is Pakistan's effort to divert attention from domestic failures of the present government and mislead its domestic constituents by pulling India into headlines on a daily basis."

The official is well advised to restrict his advise to his establishment and not to comment on India's domestic policy, Srivastava warned.

The statements made by him are contrary to the facts on the ground, misleading and fictitious, he said.

Pakistan, Srivastava pointed out, continues to support, aid and abet cross-border terrorism against India and has also been resorting to unprovoked ceasefire violations to support terrorist infiltration. The Pakistani leadership continues to indulge in inappropriate, provocative and hate speech against India, he said.

"Such support to terrorism against India and use of derogatory and abusive language are not conducive to normal neighbourly relations," Srivastava said..