After Pakistan’s foreign minister angered India with two phone calls to Kashmiri separatist leaders, the country’s army chief Monday chaired a corps commanders’ conference and discussed the Kashmir issue.
Gen Qamar Bajwa’s move on the eve of the Kashmir Day came days after Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi discussed the Kashmir issue with Hurriyat Conference leaders Syed Ali Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq.
Following the foreign minister’s phone calls, India summoned Pakistan envoy SohailMahmood and categorically told him that Qureshi’s telephonic conversation with Mirwaiz was a “brazen attempt to subvert India’s unity and violate its sovereignty and territorial integrity”.
Qureshi’s telephonic conversation with a separatist leader, India said, “reflected the duplicity in Pakistani leadership’s approach on ties with India”.
Pakistan and Kashmiri separatist leaders observe ‘Kashmir Day’ on February 5 every year to observe the country’s support to the cause of an independent Kashmir. It is a national holiday in Pakistan.
During a meeting in Rawalpindi to review the internal security situation and preparedness along the LoC, Bajwa “expressed solidarity with resilient Kashmiri brethren on the eve of Kashmir Day”, Pakistan army spokesman major general Asif Ghafoor said in a statement.
“The forum discussed situation along Line of Control and Working Boundary with reference to continued cease fire violations,” he said.