Amid souring of relations between India and Pakistan after the Uri attack and surgical strikes, Indian Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar told a parliamentary panel on Tuesday that the country will choose the date and time for any future talks with Pakistan.
"We had been engaging with Pakistan and will do so in future. But right now, we don't have any fixed calendar even for talks at the secretary-level," he told the panel.
The surgical strikes against militant camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in September gave an example of what India is capable of, Jaishankar told the parliamentary standing committee on foreign affairs.
He also added that "limited-calibre, target-specific, counter-terrorist operations" have been conducted before but it was never publicised.
"If you are asking whether our troops crossed the LoC and conducted calibrated operations before, the answer is yes. If you are asking if they achieved their targets and returned to India, the answer is also yes," Jaishankar reportedly said. "The only difference... this time we announced it a day later," he said, adding that it was part of strategy to go public with the news.
The parliamentary committee, headed by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, was briefed by Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar, Defence Secretary G Mohan Kumar, Vice Chief of Army Staff Lt Gen Bipin Rawat and Special Secretary (Internal Security) in the Ministry of Home Affairs MK Singla.
When asked about evidence of the strike, the government officials said that the Army went in for conducting strikes and not to collect evidence.
When a member of the committee asked if India would conduct more strikes, the officials said that the last strike served its purpose and would act as a deterrent for Pakistan. However, there have been 29 ceasefire violations since the surgical strikes.
