ISLAMABAD, Sept. 13 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan on Thursday dismissed as "unwarranted" references to the country in the India-U.S. joint statement issued after talks between U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defense James Mattis with their Indian counterparts in New Delhi last week.
In a joint statement issued after talks in New Delhi on Sept. 6, Indian Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj and Minister of Defense Nirmala Sitharaman and Pompeo and Mattis called on Pakistan to "ensure that the territory under its control is not used to launch terrorist attacks on other countries."
Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Faisal criticized the India-U.S. statement at his weekly briefing in Islamabad.
"We have taken strong exception to the unwarranted references against Pakistan in the recently issued Indo-U.S. Joint Statement of Sept. 6, 2018. Pakistan rejects these baseless allegations," he said.
The spokesman said that mentioning of a third country with unsubstantiated accusations in a formal outcome document is inconsistent with the established diplomatic norms.
"What is more ironic is that many other thorny issues involving the third countries were avoided in the Joint Statement by the Indian side on the pretext of the same diplomatic practice," Faisal said.
To a question about the outcome of Pompeo's visit to Pakistan on Sept. 5, he said that the visit was welcomed by Pakistan, which offered an opportunity for both sides to have a very frank and candid conversation.
"The continuation of engagement at the leadership level is important to take the relationship forward," he said and informed the media that Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has been invited to visit Washington by Pompeo.
