India has been seeking to open the Kartarpur corridor linking Gurdwara Darbar Sahib — the final resting place of Guru Nanak Dev — to Dera Baba Nanak in Gurdaspur for several years.
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“I am very happy that for the last 20 years, India has been
asking for the Kartarpur Corridor and for the first time Pakistan has agreed to
it now,” said Swaraj.
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Ahead of the stone laying ceremony of Kartarpur corridor by
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, External
Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Wednesday threatened to pull out of the SAARC
Summit, saying there would be no dialogue with Pakistan until it stops
sponsoring terrorist activities.
“Unless and until
Pakistan stops terrorist activities in India there will be no dialogue and we
will not participate in SAARC,” Swaraj said at a press conference in Hyderabad.
On Tuesday, Pakistan Foreign Office Spokesman Mohammad
Faisal said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will
be invited to the summit. In 2016, India had pulled out of the 19th SAARC
summit that was to be held in Islamabad after the deadly terrorist attack on an
Indian Army camp in J&K’s Uri.
The summit had to be called off after Bangladesh, Bhutan and
Afghanistan also declined to attend. Maldives and Sri Lanka are the other two
members of the regional grouping. No SAARC meeting has happened ever since.
Swaraj’s statement today came hours before the foundation
stone laying ceremony for the much-awaited corridor linking Gurdwara
Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur — the final resting place of Sikh faith’s founder Guru Nanak Dev — to
Dera Baba Nanak shrine in Gurdaspur district.
India had earlier sought Pakistan’s co-operation in opening
the Kartarpur corridor, which will facilitate visa-free travel of Indian
Sikh pilgrims to Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur.
“I am very happy that
for the last 20 years, India has been asking for the Kartarpur Corridor and for
the first time Pakistan has agreed to it now,” said Swaraj.
“But that does not mean that bilateral talks will start only
on this,” she said, adding terror and talks cannot go together.
Swaraj, who is campaigning for the BJP in Telangana, had
declined to attend the stone laying event in Pakistan due to “prior
commitments”. Instead, she nominated Union Ministers Harsimrat Kaur
Badal and Hardeep Singh Puri to represent India.
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