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| Pakistan not to resume trade till India restores J&K special status |
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Islamabad: The Pakistan cabinet at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday turned down a government committee's decision to import sugar, cotton and cotton yarn from India, saying there can be no trade with India until the special status of Jammu and Kashmir is restored.
"And today Cabinet stated clearly NO trade with India," Minister for Human Rights Shireen Mazari tweeted.
The minister said Prime Minister Khan had made it clear that "there can be no normalisation of relations with India until they reverse their illegal actions."
On August 5, 2019, India revoked Article 370 of the Constitution that accorded special status to Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan had at that time instantly suspended trade with India in reaction to the latter's this decision.
Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said that cabinet had ruled that "normalising relations with India will not be possible" until it overturned the measures it took regarding Kashmir's special status.
"There was an exchange of thoughts on this and there was a unanimous opinion on this and it was the prime minister's [opinion] as well that as long as India does not review the unilateral steps it took on August 5, 2019, normalising relations with India will not be possible," Qureshi told Geo News.
said.
The cabinet decision comes a just a day after Finance Minister Hammad Azhar announced that the private sector can import sugar and cotton, saying that the decision was taken to improve supplies and discourage price hike in Pakistan.
Notably, Dawn newspaper had on Wednesday reported that PM Imran Khan, who is also in-charge of commerce and textile, had already approved the proposals that were placed before the ECC for approval. It meant that lifting the ban on these products imports from India has the support of the prime minister.
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