China wants India and Pakistan to join hands and have good relations for promoting peace and stability in the region , said Chinese Ambassador to India, Sun Weidong.

“Both China and India are major countries with important influence in the region. The two leaders had in-depth communication on the regional situation. China stressed that it sincerely look forward to good relations between China and India, China and Pakistan as well as India and Pakistan. We hope to see countries in the region join hands in promoting regional peace and stability and realising development and prosperity,” Weidong said.

He further said that during the recently concluded informal talks between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, China proposed expanding the scope of dialogue in order to extend the cooperation in the region.

“The Chinese side also put forward its proposition on promoting cooperation under the ‘China-India+’ mechanism, that is to extend the cooperation model to other countries in South Asia, Southeast Asia and Africa on the basis of the ‘China-India+Afghanistan’ cooperation,” he said.

He also promoted the importance of India-China relationship by saying that it will have an important and positive impact on the building of a fair and equitable international border.

Post Pulwama terror attack in February, in which 40 CRPF personnel were killed, the relationship between India and Pakistan got strained. Jaish-e-Mohammed, a Pakistan based terror outfit had claimed the responsibility of the attack, following which the Indian Air Force had launched an air strike on its terror camp at Balakot in Pakistan.

The relationship between the neighboring countries got deteriorated after the Indian side removed the Article 370 from Constitution that gave special status to the state of Jammu and Kashmir on August 5.

Post the decision, Islamabad downgraded the diplomatic relations with New Delhi.

Pakistan was isolated globally in the issue and found very little support. All the major powers including Russia, France, US endorsed India’s stand that the decision of abrogation of Article 370 was India’s internal matter.

Prior to Xi Jinping’s visit to India, Pakistani Prime Minister, Inmran Khan had visited Beijing along with the Army Chief of Pakistan. Khan raised the issues of Kashmir and CPEC during the visit.

India has always maintained that talk and terror cannot go hand in hand. Earlier also, the talks between the two countries diluted whenever there was any Pakistan sponsored terror activity conducted in India. In a tense situation like this, the China’s pitch to revive the India-Pakistan relations is unlikely to yield any results.

It is to be noted that in recent past, Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, had announced that Pakistan is going to host SAARC summit in which India will also be invited. Earlier also, Pakistan’s effort to organise SAARC summit and draw consensus on full participation failed to yield results.