India rejects Pakistan's note verbale on Kashmir

New Delhi, Aug 14 India on Sunday rejected a note verbale issued by Pakistan's Foreign Ministry to the Indian High Commission in Islamabad regarding sending essential supplies from Pakistan to Jammu and Kashmir.

"I can only characterize its (note verbale) contents as absurd," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said.

Swarup said India and others in the region have already received enough of Pakistan's trademark exports of "international terrorism, cross-border infiltrators, weapons, narcotics and fake currency".

"We completely and categorically reject this purported communication from the Pakistan Foreign Ministry," he added.

Sartaj Aziz, Pakistan's foreign policy chief, said on Friday that Islamabad wanted to have an exclusive dialogue on Jammu and Kashmir with New Delhi and that the Pakistani Foreign Secretary would write to his Indian counterpart about this.

India responded that it would welcome a dialogue on contemporary and relevant issues only.

India-Pakistan ties have become frosty after largescale violence broke out in Jammu and Kashmir following the killing of Kashmiri militant Burhan Wani on July 8.

On July 25, Indian authorities arrested Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist Bahadur Ali in Jammu and Kashmir who officials said had sneaked in from Pakistan.

Indian Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar summoned Pakistani High Commissioner Abdul Basit on August 9 and issued a strongly worded demarche protesting against cross-border terrorism from Pakistan.

IANS