Blaming only 'Pak Army' for deteriorating ties is wrong: Sandeep Dikshit

Congress leader Sandeep Dikshit on Thursday said it is not right to blame only the 'Pakistan Army' for deteriorating relations between New Delhi and Islamabad, adding that the Pakistan diplomats are constantly trying to portray India in bad light at the international forum.

Dikshit was reacting to former Pakistan Ambassador to India Ashraf Jehangir Qazi's remarks that their Army does not appreciate Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's attempts to decide on policy towards India.

"Pakistani Army almost works like an independent organisation with only its own selfish interests and that they do not want peace with India is a well-known fact. But it is wrong to say that rest of the Pakistani Government wants peace or has a very positive attitude towards Indo-Pak relations," he told ANI.

"Whenever you go internationally, at international conferences, in the UN meetings or any forum in which Pakistan is represented by their officers, diplomats; they always make it a point to attack India, to show India in a bad light, to distort the facts about Kashmir. So, to say that only Pakistani Army does it is wrong. On the diplomatic front, they do what the Army does on the border. They all work in tandem," he added.

Qazi in an op-ed published in Pakistan's Dawn newspaper has opined that the Pathankot attack could be the military establishment's way of telling the Prime Minister 'who is the boss'.

The former Pakistan envoy has also reportedly said that India provided Pakistan 'actionable intelligence' regarding the attack on the Pathankot air base.