Pakistani envoy hopes to bolster fragile ties with India through trade

Pakistan High Commissioner to India Abdul Basit hopes progress in trade ties between India and Pakistan will help bolster a fragile peace process between the nuclear armed neighbours.

Basit said that India needs to be flexible when it comes to Pakistan in terms of non-tariff barriers to trade.

"We do expect India that our neighbour should not apply those non-tariff barriers across the board and show some flexibility when they are applied to Pakistan," Basit told a conference on 'Enhancing India-Pakistan trade', organised by Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER).

Trade has long been tied to political issues between the hostile neighbors, who have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947.

Basit also accused India of hardening its stand on Jammu and Kashmir when bilateral trade between the countries had seen a rise.

"At present the volume of trade is around two billion dollars but what we have seen is that as the bilateral trade increases we have also witnessed hardening of India's position on Jammu and Kashmir as evident in cancellation of foreign secretary meetings in Islamabad which was scheduled for August 25th last year," added Basit.

In August last year, New Delhi withdrew from the planned peace talks in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, after Pakistan's Ambassador to India met Kashmiri separatists ahead of the meeting.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, meanwhile, had also accused Pakistan of engaging in a "proxy war or terrorism" in Kashmir.