Pakistan to mull over response to India today over Kashmir, Uri

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will chair a meeting today with the heads of parliamentary parties over sending a message to the world following incidents of cross-border terrorism and also the Kashmir issue.

Officials told Dawn that invitations had been extended to the heads of all parties in the two houses of parliament without discrimination. However, there is one exception of Sheikh Rashid Ahmed who has not been invited.

Sheikh Rashid is the sole member of his Awami Muslim League in the National Assembly.

A similar meeting was convened by the Prime Minister in January this year to build consensus over the vital China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

A member of the federal cabinet told Dawn that the meeting was meant to let the world know that Pakistan stood united against India's "warmongering" and wanted to highlight the plight of the people of Kashmir.

Talking to Dawn, PPP chief spokesperson Qamar Zaman Kaira said it had been his party's suggestion to hold a multiparty conference on Kashmir to forge a united national response when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was trying to isolate Pakistan at all international and regional forums.

"Naturally, the agenda of this meeting should be the ongoing tensions at the LoC and the potential response from Pakistan, particularly in the background of the Uri incident and Indian claims that it had carried out surgical strikes on alleged terrorist hideouts inside Pakistan," the PPP information secretary.