ISLAMABAD : Pakistan’s cabinet on Thursday put off allowing imports of cotton and sugar from neighbouring India until Delhi reviews its 2019 move to revoke the Kashmir region’s special status, the foreign minister said.
In an effort to cool local demand and prices, Pakistan’s Economic Coordination Committee (ECC), the country’s top economic decision-making body, gave the go-ahead on Wednesday for the imports, which would have ended nearly two years of trade suspension between the nuclear-armed rivals.
“It was a consensus opinion, including the prime minister, that as long as India doesn’t review the Aug. 5, 2019, unilateral steps it took, it wouldn’t be possible to normalise relations with India,” Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said of the cabinet meeting, chaired by Prime Minister Imran Khan, which had to endorse the ECC’s decision for trade to start.
“Today Cabinet stated clearly NO trade with India,” Minister for Human Rights Shireen Mazari tweeted.
She said Prime Minister Imran Khan had made it clear that “there can be no normalisation of relations with India until they reverse their illegal actions” regarding occupied Kashmir taken on Aug 5, 2019.
And today Cabinet stated clearly NO trade with India. PM made clear there can be no normalisation of relations with India until they reverse their illegal actions viz IIOJK of 5 Aug 2019. https://t.co/HDWt3kBM3c
— Shireen Mazari (@ShireenMazari1) April 1, 2021
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