'Ties with India will improve'

Islamabad, June 4: A day after declaring that Kashmir was an “unfinished agenda of Partition”, Army chief Gen. Raheel Sharif on Thursday promised an improvement in relations with India but warned that Islamabad will not be intimidated by recent statements emating from New Delhi. After a joint session of parliament, Sharif told media that in the coming days there would be an improvement in relations with India, Geo News reported.

Sharif said there was no reason to be worried about the recent attitude exhibited by India as the Pakistani Army was capable of responding to any form of aggression.

The army chief’s statement follows a flurry of similar assertions that India was involved in stoking terrorism across Pakistan. Recently, the military and civilian leadership have expressed serious concerns about India’s allegedly “nefarious designs”, with top government officials saying India was attempting to sabotage Pakistan’s $46-billion agreement with Chi on a strategic economic corridor. Earlier on Tuesday, federal Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar had also referred to Indian Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar’s statement that terrorists had to be neutralised only through terrorists and termed it as an open admission that the neighbour was pursuing the policy of state-sponsored terrorism.  (IANS)