Shinde rejects third party intervention on Kashmir

Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde on Monday said that the Indian Government has consistently maintained that there can be no third party interference in bilateral matters between India and Pakistan.

"Our stand has always been that when it is a matter between two countries, the third country cannot participate in it. This has been our viewpoint right the time of Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru and even today our view is the same," he told media here, when asked about Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif hinting at seeking US intervention in resolving the Kashmir issue.

Sharif, presently on a four-day official to the US, is scheduled to meet President Barack Obama at the White House on October 23.

This is the first visit by a Pakistani Prime Minister to the US in more than five years.

The Obama administration has, however, said there has not been an 'iota of change' in its policy on Kashmir which considers it a bilateral issue between New Delhi and Islamabad.