Pakistani Foreign Minister says will skip OIC session as Indian counterpart invited

Qureshi said, at a session of the parliament, that Swaraj had been invited to the meeting, which started in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) earlier in the day, even though India was neither a member nor an observer of the OIC. The minister stressed that the OIC had not withdrawn the invitation for his Indian counterpart, even though Islamabad had sent two letters of protests to the host country.

"I have [therefore] decided not to attend OIC Council of Foreign Ministers meeting in Abu Dhabi," Qureshi said.
The diplomat voiced regret that the UAE, which had previously "always helped Pakistan in difficult times," took the side of India amid conflict between the two neighboring countries.

A lower-level delegation from Pakistan will attend the OIC Council of Foreign Ministers session in order to present Islamabad's 19 resolutions, including those related to India's alleged human rights violations in the disputed Kashmir region, Qureshi added.

This week, tensions between India and Pakistan escalated, as the two countries engaged in an air battle and lost jets in it. It followed an air strike by the Indian Air Force on what it said was a camp of the militant Jaish-e-Mohammad group, considered terrorist by India, which was located on the Pakistani soil across the so-called Line of Control (LoC) separating the Indian- and Pakistani-controlled parts of the disputed Kashmir region.

The strike came after a deadly attack by Jaish-e-Mohammad on the Indian paramilitary police force in Kashmir in mid-February. While India has accused Pakistan of supporting the militants and having a "direct hand" in the incident, Pakistan has rejected the allegations, accusing India, in turn, of being responsible for human rights violations taking place in Kashmir.

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