New Delhi: Building up on the diplomatic offensive against Islamabad in the wake of Uri attack, India is now mulling economic measures, including withdrawal of the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status to Pakistan, which will be discussed at a meeting called by Prime Minister Narendra Modi here on Thursday.
The meeting will be attended by senior officials of the Ministry of External Affairs and the Commerce Ministry, sources said here today. The decision to review the status comes just within 24 hours of India's decision to revisit the Indus Water Treaty, which is said to be tilted towards Pakistan. The Prime Minister, at a meeting on the treaty had yesterday given a tough message to Islamabad, saying that ‘’blood and water can’t flow together.’’
India had granted MFN status to Pakistan in 1996 under the WTO's General Agreement on Tariff and Trade (GATT), signatories to which have to treat each other and rest of WTO member countries, as favoured trading partners. However, despite several assurances, Islamabad was yet to reciprocate India's gesture. The MFN status gives Pakistan the benefit of low trade tariff and high import quota.
India has toughened its stand against Pak-sponsored terrorism after attack on army base camp at Uri, which killed 18 soldiers. The incident has evoked nationwide outrage, following which the Prime Minister had said that the culprits of the terror strike would not go unpunished.
Indus Water Treaty: Water and blood cannot flow together
Tension with Pakistan over the Uri attack escalated as India decided to slow down cooperation with Islamabad in the working of Indus Water Treaty, underlined by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's assertion that blood and water cannot flow together. The Prime Minister’s remark came at a meeting held to review the treaty that had been concluded between the two nations in 1960 and signed by the then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Pakistan President General Ayub Khan.
According to official sources, the signal emanating from the meeting was that Pakistan cannot take the working of the treaty for granted, if it continued cross border terror strikes on India. The review of the treaty has been called within days of the Uri attack in which 18 soldiers were martyred.
The Uri attack itself had taken place in the backdrop of a high-pitched war of words between the two countries over the Kashmir unrest, for which India has directly blamed Pakistan. As public sentiments over the Uri massacre rose, the Prime Minister had said that its perpetrators would not go unpunished. (UNI)