India wasted opportunity to normalise ties with Pakistan through its 'hostile stance', says its defence minister Khurram Dastgir

Islamabad: Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khurram Dastgir Khan has said that India has not only wasted the opportunity for normalisation of ties with Islamabad but also restricted the space for peace through its “hostile” stance, according to a media report. [caption id=“attachment_4349289” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Pakistani defence minister Khurram Dastgir. Wikimedia Commons[/caption] The defence minister made the comments on Wednesday while announcing a policy statement in the Senate, Dawn News reported. “The unremittingly hostile, anti-Pakistan stance by the current Indian government has drastically reduced the space for any advocacy of peace,” he said. Khan noted that the Indian government also “wasted the opportunity for making peace at a time when a political consensus existed within Pakistan for improving relations with India”. “Pakistan’s perception of threat from India is not reflex; it is based upon a thorough assessment of Indian capacity to threaten Pakistan’s military from an unprecedented forward position,” he said and reminded that “the threat is calculated on capacity, not intent”. The statement was made after Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman warned Pakistan after Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad militants attacked a military camp in Sunjuwan in Kashmir that left six soldiers and a civilian dead. The paper also reported an escalation in ceasefire violations along the Line of Control and the Working Boundary. Violations of a 2003 ceasefire pact a key confidence building measure between India and Pakistan have seen a spike in 2017 compared 2015 and 2016, it said. The pattern has continued this year and there have been more than 200 violations in the first six weeks of 2018, the report said.