Pak backtracks, says Modi letter to Imran Khan did not make offer of talks

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has written to Imran Khan, the news agency PTI reported Monday.

In his letter, written on Saturday, Modi said India was looking for constructive and meaningful engagement with Pakistan.

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Modi added India was committed to peaceful and neighbourly ties with Pakistan, PTI reported official Indian sources as quoting from the letter.

Modi also stressed the need to work for a terror-free South Asia, the sources said.

Imran Khan was sworn in as prime minister of Pakistan on Friday. He is Pakistan's twenty-second prime minister.

Khan had in his first speech after winning the election called for better trade and ties with India and a resolution of the Kashmir dispute.

There was a slight kerfuffle on Monday after the new Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told reporters in Islamabad that "The Indian prime minister has sent a letter in which he congratulated Imran Khan and ... he has sent a message to open talks."

News reports in India were quick to point out — they quoted diplomatic sources — that while Modi did write to Imran Khan, there was no mention of dialogue in his letter.

The Pakistani government later offered a clarification saying Qureshi hadn't said the “Indian PM had made (an) offer of dialogue”but that Modi had, in his letter to Imran Khan, said something similar to what Qureshi had said earlier — the way forward was only through constructive engagement.

Qureshi had said earlier that "We are not only neighbours but also nuclear powers. We have no other way but to talk. There is no place for adventurism."

(With inputs from agencies)