28 February 2019•Update: 28 February 2019
By Aamir Latif
KARACHI, Pakistan
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan is ready to contact his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi in an attempt to quell the escalating tensions between the two nuclear rivals.
"Prime Minister Imran Khan is ready to telephone Prime Minister Modi to defuse the ongoing tensions between the two countries", Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told local broadcaster Geo News on Thursday.
"Is he (Modi) ready for that?" he asked.
Qureshi's remarks came minutes after U.S. President Donald Trump stated that "decent news" were coming from Pakistan and India, and that "hopefully" the conflict is coming to an end.
Responding to a question about the fate of an Indian pilot captured by Pakistani forces after shooting down the plane inside its territory, Qureshi said "If his (pilot) release brings peace, we are ready to release him".
He said the Saudi foreign minister is coming to Islamabad later on Thursday with an important message from Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. "I spoke to him last night . He expressed his desire to visit Pakistan, which I welcomed", he added.
Qureshi said he would boycott the inaugural session of the forthcoming Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) meeting in the UAE if his Indian counterpart Shushma Swaraj was invited to address.
"India is not even a member of the OIC. We have already conveyed our concerns to the OIC leadership. Therefore, we have decided not to sit with her if she is invited to the inaugural or any other session," he went on to say.
However, Qureshi said, he would attend the remaining sessions of the meeting.
"I am ready to sit with her (Swaraj) but the OIC is not a forum for that", he added.
Muhammad Faisal, Pakistan’s Foreign Office spokesman, said that his country would decide about the Indian pilot's fate in a couple of days.
"India has raised the matter of the pilot with us. We'll decide in a couple of days what convention will apply to him and whether to give him Prisoner of War status or not," Faisal was quoted as saying by local media.
He also confirmed that a dossier regarding the Pulwama incident was received from India and action will be taken on any actionable intelligence if found in it.
