BEIJING: China reiterated that India and Pakistan should move forward for early settlement of Kashmir through peaceful means.
In a news briefing on Monday, Counsellor of Chinese foreign affairs Yao Wen said that the Kashmir issue had led to casualties both in Pakistan and India.
“China does not like tense relation between these two countries,” he said. He hoped that the region could see stability and peace, settling bilateral disputes through talks and peacefully means. “Peace and stability in the region is important for Pakistan and India,” he said.
Yao Wen said both China and international community wished a peaceful solution of Kashmir issue. “Any conflict between the two countries will detrimental to peace in the entire region,” he said.
“We believe Pakistan and India have the capabilities to resolve Kashmir issue,” he added.
About the India and China, Wen said recently there were some ups and downs in their relations hip. “Being big countries, sometimes there are some disagreements between the two,” he said.
He hoped that India would appreciate China’s development. “India should respect Chinese interests,” he said.
Commenting on Afghan issue, Yao Wen said China had made its due contribution to bring Afghan government and Taliban on negotiating table. “Political negotiation is the only solution of the problem,” he said.
He hoped relevant parties linked to Afghanistan would sit together to have talks.
“China is prepared to play a constructive role in Afghanistan,” he said.
To a question, Yao Wen said that China was glad to see fast execution of CPEC, a flagship project of the Belt and Road Initiative.
“India should also join BRI. It is important that India too become part of this project. Actually, India has expressed its concerns over CPEC because it believes that it passes through a territory which India claims as its own, but CPEC is about economic cooperation and one important project is the road between China and Pakistan which is named as Karakoram Highway,” he said.
“This is only a highway between Pakistan and China. It was completed in 1970s. Now, we are only upgrading this road for more convenient transportation so we keep telling our friends in India that BRI and CPEC is not about territorial claims and it will not affect China’s position on Kashmir issue and if Pakistan enjoys development than India will also have better opportunities so CPEC is beneficial for all.”
“We are ready to have in-depth communication with Indian side to address their relevant concerns but we still have to advance the work on CPEC. We hope India could understand China’s position and will join BRI. Some 176 countries participated in BRI Summit held in May in Beijing. Japan has made some positive statements about joining BRI as well as the USA. President Trump himself also made some positive statements about BRI. So we do not want to see absence of India in BRI .We hope India could join BRI which is beneficial for development of this region. We hope Asian countries can get maximum benefits through BRI especially through connectivity projects. We want to develop better infrastructure in Asian countries,” he said.
Published in Daily Times, October 17th 2017.
