Dawn Staff Reporter
LONDON: In a significant development, Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar on Saturday expressed intentions to reconsider trade relations with India, suspended since India’s controversial move to revoke the special autonomous status of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) in August 2019.
Dar made these remarks during a press conference in London, following his participation in the Nuclear Energy Summit in Brussels. He highlighted the eagerness of Pakistan’s business community to resume trade activities with India, indicating a potential shift in diplomatic stance towards its neighboring nation.
The strained relations between Pakistan and India ensued after India’s unilateral action in August 2019, prompting then-prime minister Imran Khan’s government to downgrade diplomatic ties with India.
“We will seriously look into matters of trade with India,” he said while responding to a question. The foreign minister mentioned that the relations between the two neighbouring countries faced a setback after India revoked the constitutional and legal status of IIOJK in August 2019.
FM Dar pointed out that the 16-month government of Prime minister Shehbaz Sharif saved Pakistan from economic collapse after the bad policies of the previous government which devastated the economy of the country.
Dar said that the government would implement a five-year road map to put Pakistan on the road to economic progress and bring down inflation to lessen the economic difficulties of the common man.
He said that Pakistan had a vision for nuclear energy since the 1960s and despite the scrutiny of the world, it continued to harness the benefits of nuclear energy. “Now the world is saying that nuclear and hydro energy are the safest and best for taking on the challenge of climate change.”
He said that the previous governments of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) completed various nuclear projects and 3,800 megawatts of electricity were added to the national grid.
