Islamabad
\nNo decision has yet been taken to scrap bilateral agreements with India, Pakistan\u2019s foreign ministry said on Thursday \u2013 a day after Defence Minister Khawaja Asif claimed that the 1972 Simla Agreement between the two hostile neighbours was a \u201cdead\u201d document.
\nResponding to media queries, a senior Foreign Office official said that while India\u2019s recent actions and statements prompted internal discussions, Pakistan had made no formal or conclusive move to annul any of its bilateral accords with New Delhi.
\n\u201cAt present, there is no formal decision to terminate any bilateral accord,\u201d the official stated, indicating that the existing bilateral agreements, including the Simla Agreement, remain in effect.
\nThe clarification came a day after Defence Minister Khawaja Asif, during an interview with a private television channel, said the Simla Agreement had lost its relevance and validity due to India\u2019s recent unilateral actions. \u201cThe Simla Agreement is now a dead document. We are back to the 1948 position, when the United Nations declared the Line of Control a ceasefire line following the ceasefire and resolutions,\u201d Asif said. He argued that the bilateral framework agreed upon in 1972 had collapsed, and future disputes would have to be addressed through multilateral or international channels.
\nReferring to the first Indo-Pak war and the resulting UN-mediated ceasefire, the minister asserted that India\u2019s steps \u2014 particularly the revocation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir in 2019 \u2014 had undermined the foundations of bilateral engagement.
\nHe also questioned the current status of other key agreements, saying: \u201cWhether the Indus Waters Treaty is suspended or not, Simla is already over.\u201d
\nIn a pointed warning, the defence minister commented on the broader security situation, saying the threat of conflict with India was still there. \u201cPakistan does not desire war, but if it is imposed on us, our response will be even stronger than before,\u201d he warned.
\nThe Simla Agreement, signed in 1972 in the aftermath of the 1971 Indo-Pak war, committed both countries to resolving their disputes through peaceful and bilateral means. The accord converted the ceasefire line in Jammu and Kashmir into the Line of Control (LoC) and obligated both sides to refrain from the threat or use of force, while respecting each other\u2019s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
\nKhawaja Asif\u2019s remarks came against the backdrop of New Delhi\u2019s recent announcement to unilaterally suspend the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), followed by unprovoked strikes inside Pakistani territory last month\u2014developments that triggered heightened military tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Islamabad No decision has yet been taken to scrap bilateral agreements with India, Pakistan\u2019s foreign ministry said on Thursday \u2013 a day after Defence Minister Khawaja Asif claimed that the 1972 Simla Agreement between the two hostile neighbours was a \u201cdead\u201d document. Responding to media queries, a senior Foreign Office official said that while India\u2019s …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":60204,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82100"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82120,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82100\/revisions\/82120"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}