Pakistan's Sartaj Aziz will attend a regional conference in Amritsar early next month.
Highlights
- Sartaj Aziz is Pak's top foreign affairs official
- Will attend conference in Amritsar next month
- PM Modi to address 40-nation conference focused on Afghanistan
A day after India accused Pakistan of beheading a soldier in Kashmir and killing two others, it has received confirmation that Sartaj Aziz, who functions as Pakistan's Foreign Minister, will attend a regional conference in Amritsar early next month.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the Heart of Asia conference which focuses in improving security and furthering peace in Afghanistan, which has been mired in conflict since a US-led coalition toppled the Islamist Taliban government in 2001.
"It's a good opportunity to defuse the tension," Mr Aziz, who is an adviser to Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on foreign affairs, told a local television channel last week.
40 countries are to attend the conference on December 3 and 4, but the focus will be on India and Pakistan, whose relationship has plummeted to an extreme low in recent months with intense cross-border firing and heavy shelling occurring every day in Jammu and Kashmir.
In September, after an army camp in Uri in Kashmir was attacked, leaving 19 soldiers dead, India sent troops across the Line of Control or de facto border in Kashmir to target gathering areas for terrorists. Pakistan denies the cross-border raids or surgical strikes, but the ceasefire declared in 2003 in Jammu and Kashmir is now defunct for all practical purposes.
Yesterday's beheading of Prabhu Singh in Machil in Kupwara, about 85 km from Srinagar is the second mutilation of an Indian soldier in three weeks by Pakistani troops.