Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar recently stated that New Delhi and Islamabad have not engaged in trade talks since last year. Speaking at the Indian embassy in Washington, Jaishankar clarified that neither side had proposed resuming trade discussions.
Jaishankar emphasized that India had not initiated the cessation of trade; rather, the Pakistani government halted trade in 2019. He highlighted a key concern: “Pakistan never granted us Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status, although we had granted it to them.”
“Every country has the sovereign right to decide its international commitments and responsibilities. We can have our respective views on it,” he concluded.
Tensions escalated after the Modi-led government unilaterally revoked the special status of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) in August 2019, a move Islamabad believes deteriorated the prospects for dialogue. Pakistan insists that normalizing ties hinges on restoring IIOJK’s special status.
Despite strained relations, both countries agreed to renew the 2003 ceasefire agreement along the Line of Control (LoC) in February 2021.
In August last year, the Foreign Office of Pakistan firmly stated that no discussions were underway to resume bilateral trade. Former FO Spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch pointed to India’s actions in IIOJK in 2019 as the reason for halting trade, a situation she emphasized remains unchanged.
However, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government, led by President Nawaz Sharif, is willing to reconsider trade relations. In an interview last year with Indian journalist Barkha Dutt, Nawaz expressed his longstanding support for better relations with India and voiced hope for future dialogue opportunities. “It would have been great if PM Modi had attended the SCO summit. I do hope we will have an opportunity to sit together soon,” he stated.
