Pakistani National Security Advisor Sartaj Aziz addressing a press conference in Islamabad.
Pakistan has expressed a strong desire to go ahead with the Director-General level talks agreed between the two countries, but once again, reiterated its stand on talks with separatist leaders.
"We are confident that the meeting between the border forces on September 5 and 6 will go ahead," Pakistan National Security Adviser Sartaj Aziz said to a private news channel on Monday.
Two days ago, the NSA-level talks were called off by Pakistan after the two counties could not agree on an agenda for the talks. Mr Aziz said that if India continues to make meetings between visiting Pakistan leaders and Hurriyat leaders a redline for official talks, which he said was "unwarranted and unjustified", a dialogue between the two countries is unlikely.
He said Pakistan has prepared a proposal, which they hope to exchange with India, on setting up a mechanism so that some progress could be made on maintaining peace and tranquility on the border. He further said that Pakistan will continue to deliver on the agreement reached in Ufa in Russia between the two Prime Ministers Nawaz Sharif and Narendra Modi, such as the release of fishermen and mechanism for facilitating religious tourism.
Mr Aziz also said that PM Modi must visit Pakistan to attend the SAARC summit scheduled for next year, adding that it was a multilateral conference which should be kept out of bilateral issues.
Mr Aziz also maintained Pakistan's stand that Kashmir, though not categorically mentioned in the Ufa agreement, is the "core outstanding issue" and that the two countries had agreed on discussing the modalities of all outstanding issues at the NSA-level dialogue which were canceled.