Pakistan makes another U-turn, says no change in trade policy with India

Days after Pakistan's Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said Islamabad would seriously consider restoring trade ties with India, the country's Foreign Office on Thursday said there was no such plan. Islamabad downgraded trade ties with India following the scrapping of Article 370. 

Foreign Minister Dar, during a press conference in London on March 23, said Pakistan's business community was eager to resume trade activities with India, indicating a potential shift in diplomatic stance towards its neighbouring nation.  

At the weekly briefing, Foreign Office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch was asked to comment on reports about the possibility of resumption of trade ties with India. "Pakistan-India trade relations have been non-existent since 2019 when India took illegal steps in the illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir … There is no change in Pakistan's position on it," Baloch said. 

This is the second time Islamabad has made a U-turn on trade ties with India. In April 2021, Pakistan's Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) gave the go-ahead for the imports of cotton and sugar from India. However, a day later, then Prime Minister Imran Khan blocked the move saying trade was not possible with India "under present circumstances".

Pakistan's Geo News claimed that Khan was concerned that trade with India would give a wrong signal to the world that Pakistan was neglecting the people of Kashmir. "The source revealed that PM Imran Khan has categorically said relations between Pakistan and India cannot return to normal unless Kashmiris are given the right to self-determination by India," Geo reported.

After India revoked Article 370, Islamabad said the move undermined the environment for holding talks between the neighbours. Pakistan has been insisting that the onus of improving the ties was on India and urging it to undo its "unilateral" steps in Kashmir as a sort of pre-condition to start the talks. 
India has dismissed the suggestion and made it clear to Pakistan that the entire Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh were integral and inalienable parts of the country. 

New Delhi has also asserted that the constitutional measures taken by the Indian government to ensure socio-economic development and good governance in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir are matters internal to India. It has been maintaining that it desires normal neighbourly relations with Pakistan while insisting that the onus is on Islamabad to create an environment that is free of terror and hostility for such an engagement.

(With inputs from PTI)