RJD urges Rajnath to strongly put forth India's views on Pak in SAARC

New Delhi, Aug.3 (ANI): Asserting that dialogue with Pakistan was the key to maintaining peace in South Asia, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) on Wednesday welcomed Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh's visit to Islamabad to attend SAARC Home/Interior Ministers meeting. RJD spokesperson Manoj Jha said that the Home Minster should strongly put forth India's interests and state it clearly that brewing unrest in India is not acceptable. "We welcome it and maintain that in order to have a peaceful and prosperous South Asia, we need to have continuous dialogue with Pakistan. Pakistan was part of us. We have a common civilization heritage. Our only problem with Pakistan is on account of huge democratic deficient in Pakistan," Jha told ANI. Jha also said that there is always confusion as to whom to speak to in Pakistan, whether it is the elected government or the military establishment. "It is very important for our Home Minister Rajnath Singh to put across his views. We are open for dialogue, but not at the cost of Kashmir, not at the cost of while we raise a hand for the hand shake and you try to shake our entire nation. This is unacceptable," he added. Singh will today leave for Pakistan to attend the seventh SAARC Home/Interior Ministers meeting in Islamabad. Singh is expected to raise the issue of Pakistan's support to terror groups operating in India and ask Islamabad to check Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad and other groups based in that country. The Ministry of External Affairs had already made it clear there will be no bilateral meeting between the Home Minister and the Pakistani leaders. The visit comes in the backdrop of growing strain in the bilateral relations after Pakistan and its Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif made provocative statements on the Kashmir situation in the wake of a militant's killing on July 8. At the 13th SAARC Summit held in Dhaka in November 2005, the Heads of State decided that the SAARC Interior/Home Ministers would meet annually preceded by a meeting of the Interior/Home Secretaries to strengthen cooperation in the area of counter-terrorism, which they agreed was a challenge to all states and a threat to humanity, and could not be justified on any grounds. The first meeting of SAARC Interior/Home Ministers was held in Dhaka on May 11, 2006, followed by a meeting in New Delhi in 2007. (ANI)