New Delhi: Pakistan on Thursday cancelled the Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference which was scheduled for September. The development took place as India had threatened to boycott the meet if Pakistan did not extend invite to Jammu and Kashmir Assembly speaker.
The conference, which was to bring together speakers of Commonwealth nations, will now be held in New York in the first week of October. Twenty-seven out of the 28 members of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association voted in favour of changing the venue of the meet if Pakistan does not invite J&K Assembly Speaker Kavinder Gupta.
"Pakistan was under pressure so it cancelled the meet. Pakistan government doesn't have any control," said Gupta.
Pakistan had ruled out inviting the J&K Assembly speaker saying it does not recognise and accept the state assembly as legitimate one.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's Special Adviser on Foreign Affairs and National Security Sartaj Aziz had said Kashmir was a disputed territory and Pakistan does not recognise its Assembly.
"Pakistan does not recognise and accept the said Assembly as legitimate one," Aziz had said.
He had said Pakistan's principled position on Jammu and Kashmir will be compromised if the speaker of Kashmir is invited to the conference.
"We will never invite the speaker of occupied Jammu and Kashmir Assembly," he had said.
Pakistan had not sent an invitation to the J-K Assembly Speaker for the Inter-Parliamentary Union meeting to be held from September 30 to October 8 in Islamabad while invitations have been sent to all the other Speakers in India.
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