Islamabad, Jan 17, (dpa/GNA) – Pakistani Prime Minister, Shehbaz Sharif, renewed an offer on Tuesday to hold talks with arch-rival India, over Kashmir.
“Let us sit down on the table and have serious and sincere talks to resolve our burning issues like Kashmir,” Sharif said in a message addressed to his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi, in an interview with broadcaster al Arabiya.
“We are nuclear powers, armed to the teeth and if, God forbid, a war breaks out, who will live to tell what happened?” he said.
He said the United Arab Emirates – where al Arabiya is based – could play a role in bringing India and Pakistan to the table.
Sharif, who recently visited the UAE, made a similar offer last year, when Modi congratulated him on his election as prime minister.
Both India and Pakistan administer separate portions of Kashmir, but claim the region in its entirety.
India-administered Kashmir has seen a deadly secessionist movement since the 1980s. India accuses Pakistan of aiding and abetting Kashmiri militants, a charge Pakistan denies.
India and Pakistan have fought three wars, two of them over Kashmir.
Ukraine’s first lady tells Davos of war’s horrors, urges solidarity
Davos, Switzerland (dpa) – Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska addressed the elite conclave of political and business leaders in Davos on Tuesday in a bid to rally support as her country readies for a second year at war.
Speaking from the stage in the Swiss resort town, she hammered home the point that Russia’s unprovoked invasion had “traumatized” families across the country, urging the World Economic Forum audience to imagine the war through the “eyes of the people whose lives have been brought into chaos.”
Of the war’s toll on ordinary Ukrainians, she said: Picture the “parents who are crying in an ICU as doctors fight for the life of their wounded child” or the farmer who cannot return to work the land due to the danger of mines.
“We are facing the collapse of the world as we know it,” Zelenska said, arguing that Russian President Vladimir Putin threatens to overrun borders beyond Ukraine.
“You are all united by the fact that you are really influential,” she said. “But not all of you are using this influence, or sometimes you use it in a way that divides even more.”
There is a large contingent of Ukrainian officials at Davos this year, including First Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko.
President Volodymyr Zelensky was scheduled to address the forum on Wednesday.
NotepadTensions have run high since August 2019 when India stripped the region of Kashmir of its special autonomous status, a move that angered Pakistan.
GNA