Pakistan PM Sharif offers Indian counterpart Modi talks over Kashmir issue

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif renewed an offer on Tuesday to hold talks with arch-rival India over Kashmir.

"Let us sit down on the table and have serious and sincere talks to resolve our burning issues like Kashmir," Sharif said in a message addressed to his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi, in an interview with broadcaster al Arabiya.

"We are nuclear powers, armed to the teeth and if, God forbid, a war breaks out, who will live to tell what happened?" he said.

He said that the United Arab Emirates - where al Arabiya is based - could play a role in bringing India and Pakistan to the table.

Sharif, who recently visited the UAE, made a similar offer last year when Modi congratulated him on his election as prime minister.

Both India and Pakistan administer separate portions of Kashmir but claim the region in its entirety.

India-administered Kashmir has seen a deadly secessionist movement since the 1980s. India accuses Pakistan of aiding and abetting Kashmiri freedom fighters, a charge Pakistan denies.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars, two of them over Kashmir.

Tensions have run high since August 2019 when India stripped the region of Kashmir of its special autonomous status, a move that angered Pakistan.