"Pakistan must return PoK to India," says All-Party Delegation member Salman Khurshid

Khurshid, in conversation with ANI, said that India has clearly stated that talks can happen only when Pakistan's commitment to peace is clear, including talks on the Indus Water Treaty.

"There is a long standing unanimous resolution of parliament of India saying that the Pakistan occupied Kashmir must be re-vacated and given back to India and as you know that even in the assembly of Jammu and Kashmir, the seats that should have been in that area are kept vacant just for this reason that we have we have a long term commitment that the area is to come back to us. That's one important factor," he said.

Khurshid further said that attempts at making peace were negated by Pakistan, as it continued to attack India over the years.

"The second is that the government has reiterated this because you know, often questions are asked about will you talk, will you not talk, etc. We have expressed our distress that repeated attempts to talk and negotiate have been betrayed by Pakistan by a subsequent attack and several attacks that happened over the years," he said.

Khurshid said that talks can happen only when Pakistan's support for terrorism stops. Till then, the Indus Water Treaty will be in abeyance.

"But the government has said clearly that talks can happen only when the commitment of Pakistan to peace is clear that their support for terrorism is cogently shown to have stopped, and only then can there be a conversation with Pakistan. And that includes the Indus Water treaty being put in abeyance, that even on that issue, further talks can only happen once terrorism is given a complete stop and completely given up," he said.

Khurshid said that India took kinetic steps to eliminate terrorist hubs in Pakistan, and their retaliation thereafter was met with India neutralizing the basis of their offensive.

"So it has been made clear that now we are taking several steps, steps that we took which are called kinetic steps of trying to eliminate the terrorist hubs in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, which is the first thing we did. And then when there was a retaliation without escalating any further, we responded to that retaliation by neutralising the basis from which retaliation was coming," he said.

Khurshid also said Indonesia was more supportive than they expected.

"I believe that Indonesia was far more supportive than we were even expecting, and we expressed our gratitude for that. They reiterated the condolence and the support messages that had already come from the president and have already come from the ASEAN headquarters, etc. and they took a lot of interest, reiterated the support that they've given," he said.

Khurshid added that as of now, they had met the Secretary General of ASEAN, and it depends on the rest of the countries to take the matter up at their next meeting.

"The issue now is of course ASEAN at its next meeting can take up the matter further because we will only talk to the Secretary General, but as far as the government and the representatives of Indonesia are concerned, they were very, very supportive, including the political parties, some of whom we will continue to meet today," he said.

Khurshid said that Indonesia was supportive of the Indian stance, and Pakistan's false narratives on the attack were rejected.

"They were extremely supportive of India's position. And the so-called narrative that was pushed by the chief of army staff in Pakistan, now a field marshal, that narrative was completely, completely negated and rejected in our conversations," he said.

Khurshid is a part of an All-Party Delegation. The delegation, led by JD-U MP Sanjay Kumar Jha, includes Aparajita Sarangi (BJP), TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee, Brij Lala (BJP), John Brittas (CPI-M), Pradan Baruah (BJP), Hemang Joshi (BJP), Salman Khurshid and Mohan Kumar.

The delegation is visiting many countries as part of India's global outreach against Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. The delegation has so far visited Japan, South Korea, and Singapore. (ANI)