The UAE News web report: Pakistan on Thursday categorically ruled out any kind of trade activities with India during a Federal Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Imran Khan citing Kashmir status.

The federal cabinet on Thursday deferred the Economic Coordination Committee’s (ECC) decision to allow the import of sugar, cotton and cotton yarn from India through land and sea routes.

The decision has been deferred until India reinstates Article 370 of its Constitution, which guaranteed a semi-autonomous status for Indian-occupied Kashmir. Pakistan had suspended all bilateral trade with Indian following New Delhi’s decision to revoke Article 370 in August 2019.

“Today Cabinet stated clearly NO trade with India,” Minister for Human Rights Shireen Mazari tweeted.

She said Prime Minister Imran Khan had made it clear that “there can be no normalisation of relations with India until they reverse their illegal actions” regarding occupied Kashmir taken on Aug 5, 2019.

Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi also said the cabinet had ruled that “normalising relations with India will not be possible” until it overturned the measures it took regarding occupied Kashmir’s special status.

“A perception was emerging that relations with India have moved towards normalisation and trade has been opened,” Qureshi said. “There was an exchange of thoughts on this and there was a unanimous opinion on this and it was the prime minister’s [opinion] as well that as long as India does not review the unilateral steps it took on August 5, 2019, normalising relations with India will not be possible.”

Newly appointed Finance Minister Hammad Azhar, who had announced the ECC decision to allow sugar and cotton imports from India on Wednesday, said it was routine for the cabinet to approve or reject the committee’s proposals.

“The ECC proposes dozens of measures each week to the cabinet and the cabinet and PM routinely endorse, reject or modify some of them,” he tweeted. “This is how the economic and political interface in a democracy works.”

Earlier today, Mazari too had stated that all ECC decisions “have to be approved by the federal cabinet”.

“Only then they can be seen as ‘approved by government’,” she said, adding that the “media should be aware of this at least”.

Addressing a post-cabinet meeting press conference in the evening, Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry said decision-making in the government was done on a “very different level”, and that the final decision rested with the cabinet.

He said the ECC decision to allow imports of sugar and cotton from India held “the status of a recommendation” for the government and it was not mandatory for the cabinet to approve it.

“So the headlines that were printed that Pakistan has decided to conduct trade with India in textile were not correct. It was an ECC recommendation but the cabinet hasn’t taken any such decision,” he stressed.

Chaudhry said the Government of Pakistan had a stated position that “until India’s occupation of Kashmir and the steps to change its position are reversed, such decisions [regarding trade] will be processed through the filter that the government has determined in this regard.”

It is wrong to say that the ECC decision should be considered a government decision, he said, adding that “the government has so far not approved any sort of trade with India.”Talking about the letter written by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Prime Minister Imran on the occasion of Pakistan Day, the minister said improvement in relations between India and Pakistan would be good for the region and help the economy grow, but that “this progress cannot be at the cost of Kashmir”.