New Delhi cancelled talks with Pakistan because of India's internal issues: Qureshi

After Pakistan foreign office released a statement saying India’s grounds for cancelling talks were not convincing, country’s External Affairs Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said that New Delhi cancelled the talks because of “India’s internal issues”.

Pakistan-based Geo News quoted Qureshi as saying that India cited an issue that took place in July to cancel talks that would have taken place now. The Pakistan foreign minister said that what New Delhi did was “not appropriate”.

Qureshi further accused India of “crushing diplomatic protocol” by cancelling the talks scheduled to be held on the sidelines of United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) session in New York.

This came hours after Pakistan foreign office released a statement saying reasons cited by India for cancellation of talks were “entirely unconvincing”. The statement further claimed that Pakistan military had no role in the killing of Border Security Force (BSF) jawan recently.

The reasons cited by the Indian side for the decision to cancel the Foreign Ministers' meeting, within 24 hours of its public confirmation, are entirely unconvincing. The so-called "disturbing developments" alluded to in the Indian statement predated the Indian agreement to hold the bilateral meeting in New York,” read the statement released by the Pakistan government.

Pointing that the BSF soldier was killed two days before India announced that the talks would be held on the sidelines of UNGA in New York, Pakistan claimed that its rangers had conveyed it to the BSF formally that the country's military "had nothing to do with it".

Pakistan also accused India of “Falsely raising the canard of terrorism”. “India can neither hide its unspeakable crimes against the Kashmiri people nor can it delegitimise their indigenous struggle for their inalienable right to self-determination,” said the statement.

As per the statement released by Pakistan, India has once again wasted a serious opportunity to change the dynamics of the bilateral relationship and put the region on the path of peace and development.