Pak NSA rules out visiting India to attend Afghan conference

Islamabad: Pakistan National Security Advisor (NSA) Moeed Yusuf on Tuesday said he would not travel to India to attend a conference hosted by it on Afghanistan, as he dismissed New Delhi's role as a "peacemaker" in the war-torn neighbouring nation.

India extended the invitation to Pakistan to attend the regional conference on Afghanistan next week, expected to be hosted by Indian NSA Ajit Doval.

The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan on August 15, two weeks before the US was set to complete its troop withdrawal after a costly two-decade war.

I will not go. I am not going. A spoiler can't become a peacemaker," Yusuf said in response to a question about whether he will be attending the meeting hosted by India.

Earlier, Pakistan's Foreign Office confirmed the invitation from India but said the decision would be taken at an appropriate time.

Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi had earlier said that Pakistan's decision would be based on keeping in view the current state of relationship between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.

A curt no by Yusuf laid to rest a possibility of thaw in ties between Pakistan and India. Ties between India and Pakistan nose-dived after a terror attack on the Pathankot Air Force base in 2016 by terror groups based in the neighbouring country. Subsequent attacks, including one on an Indian Army camp in Uri, further deteriorated the

relationship.