NEW DELHI:India cancelled on Friday a rare meeting between its foreign minister and her Pakistani counterpart scheduled to have taken place on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, only a day after announcing it would take place.
The Indian foreign ministry said the cancellation followed the "latest brutal killings of our security personnel by Pakistan-based entities and the recent release of a series of twenty postage stamps by Pakistan glorifying a terrorist and terrorism".
Its statement did not specify which killings it was referring to, but earlier this week an Indian border guard in the disputed territory of Kashmir was killed and his body mutilated.
And on Friday three policemen were found dead after being abducted in Indian-administered Kashmir.
India has long accused Pakistan of arming rebel groups in Kashmir, a Himalayan territory divided between the two countries but claimed in full by both.
Pakistan recently issued postage stamps of Burhan Wani, a Kashmiri militant killed by Indian troops in July 2016, whose death sparked a wave of violent protests in India.
The meeting in New York between Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj and Pakistan's Shah Mehmood Qureshi was only confirmed on Thursday.
It came after Pakistan's new Prime Minister Imran Khan wrote to his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi calling for a resumption of talks between the nuclear-armed foes.
"Now, it is obvious that behind Pakistan's proposal for talks to make a fresh beginning, the evil agenda of Pakistan stands exposed and the true face of the new Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan has been revealed to the world in his first few months in office," India's foreign ministry said Friday.
