KATHMANDU: Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has rejected the use of a bulletproof car provided by rival India for next week’s summit of South Asian leaders in Kathmandu, a Nepalese official said Monday.
Sharif “will be bringing his own car… all other vehicles for (visiting) heads of countries have come from India”, said foreign ministry spokesperson Khaga Nath Adhikari.
Adhikari denied the move was a snub specifically targeted at India, whose tense ties with Pakistan have worsened since October over some of the worst cross-border firing in years.
“It’s not that they have refused to use an Indian car… when the US president travels, he also brings his own car, it’s not an issue,” he told AFP.
The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit will see the leaders of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Nepal, India and Pakistan meet in Kathmandu on November 26 and 27.
Recent exchanges of fire across the de facto border between India and Pakistan in Kashmir, which both countries administer in part but claim in full, have killed at least 20 civilians and forced thousands to flee their homes.
The nuclear-armed neighbours, who have fought two wars over Muslim-majority Kashmir, have traded blame for the upsurge in firing and shelling which started on October 6.
India called off peace talks in August after Pakistan first consulted Kashmiri separatists, a move some saw as a sign of a tougher stance by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s new right-wing government.
Pakistan snubs India over bulletproof car at SAARC summit – The Express Tribune
Again confusing the matter by mentioning opposite and conflicting talk, on one hand you accept Kashmir being disputed territory but than if Pakistani talks to the effected people, you cancel the talk, what a hypocrisy.
these are acts of an enemy and yet you expect that Pakistan PM should sit the limo provided by an enemy country, this it seems is based on spinning the matter and shows that Indian is not interested in an honest talk but on delaying by nonsense and confusing acts, real spin at its worst.