Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, during an interview, reasserted India's claim over the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) and said: "India will never give up its claim on PoK but it won't have to capture it with force because its people, on their own, would want to be part of India after seeing the development in Kashmir". 

"I think India will not have to do anything. The way the ground situation has changed in Jammu and Kashmir, the way the region is witnessing economic progress and the way peace has returned there, I think demands will emerge from people of PoK that they should merge with India," he said. "We will not have to use force to take PoK as people would say that we must be merged with India. Such demands are now coming," he said. The defence minister asserted that "PoK was, is, and will remain ours".