ISLAMABAD
Islamabad has rejected Thursday India’s warning with regards to peace talks in Kashmir.
On Wednesday, Indian defense minister, Arun Jaitley, said Pakistan had to make a "conscious choice for peace" and choose whether it wanted to talk with India or separatists.
"The Indian defense minister's statement is totally unacceptable for Pakistan," Tasnim Aslam, the foreign office spokeswoman, said in her weekly briefing. "Kashmiris are freedom fighters not separatists."
Aslam added that Kashmiris were carrying out their movement for freedom from an occupied territory.
She said Pakistan had always been sincere in talks with India as it was not a favor but essential for peace and development in South Asia.
In August, talks between both countries' foreign secretaries were cancelled after Pakistan's high commissioner to India held meetings with pro-independence political leaders from the Indian-held section of the disputed Kashmir region.
She had added that such meetings with Kashmiri leaders were routine ahead of Pakistan-India talks, a claim that was at the time supported by Shabbir Shah, a senior figure in the pro-independence Hurriyat party.
Kashmir is divided between nuclear rivals India and Pakistan and has been a point of contention since the two independent states were formed in the aftermath of British decolonization in 1947. They have fought two full-fledged wars in the region in 1948 and in 1965.
Since 1989, resistance groups in Indian Held-Kashmir have been fighting against Indian rule for independence, or for unification with neighboring Pakistan.
More than 70,000 people have reportedly been killed in the conflict so far.
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