British FS says J-K issue be resolved by India and Pak

New Delhi: Visiting British Foreign Secretary David Miliband has said that India must sort out the Kashmir issue.

When asked by CNN-IBN’s Karan Thapar on the television show ‘The Devil’s Advocate’ that whether Britain believes that the time has come for either an American or an international initiative to sort out Kashmir?

Miliband said, “Well, that’s not been our policy, no. We have felt that the composite dialogue so called between India and Pakistan is the right way forward, it’s a bilateral issue. Bilateral track has been a good track and it should be used.”

The Indian Foreign Ministry was upset with an article Miliband wrote for the Guardian, linking India's fight against terror to the Jammu and Kashmir dispute.

In fact, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has now officially reacted to that article through the following statement.

MEA spokesperson, Vishnu Prakash said, “Miliband is free to express his views; however, we do not need unsolicited advice on internal issues such as J-K.”

Seeking to link the Kashmir problem to terrorism in India, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband has said the resolution of the longstanding issue between New Delhi and Islamabad would help deny extremists in the region "one of their main calls to arms."

Writing in The Guardian he said, "Although I understand the current difficulties, resolution of the dispute over Kashmir would help deny extremists in the region one of their main calls to arms, and allow Pakistani authorities to focus more effectively on tackling the threat on their western borders," Miliband said in his article.