India to Pakistan: Create right atmosphere for dialogue

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday said Pakistan has to create the right atmosphere for a dialogue with India.

A day after the government appointed Dineshwar Sharma as its interlocutor for Jammu and Kashmir, Jaitley told ANI in an exclusive interview that, "Pakistan has to create an atmosphere to initiate a dialogue with India. This decision will not be made by the people of Kashmir..."

Tearing into the previous UPA regime, Jaitley said it never had a policy for Kashmir and this had fanned turbulence. He said the previous government's policy for the Kashmir Valley could be described as a "band-aid solution".

"The UPA government had no policy in Kashmir. During the UPA regime, working groups like silent and invisible dialogue were formed, but actually, they were non-existing groups. Working groups was a myth. I was also a member of a group which neither conducted any meeting nor presented any report. I also wrote a letter to the then prime minister Manmohan Singh for that report," he said.

Recounting the work of the NDA government, Jaitley said, "The impact of the work that has been done by us in last three years, is visible now. The funds of terrorists have dried up. They are on run. The situation is under control. The police is under the control of the administration."

Jaitley further said that in last three years an intelligence network has been formed which has exposed the Hurriyat and their funding sources before the people of Kashmir.