News
Monday, April 09, 2012
India, Pakistan agree to normalise relations* Zardari, Singh agree to adopt a step-by-step approach to end disputes
* Singh presses Pakistan to act against Hafiz Saeed
* Zardari wants Sir Creek, Siachen, Kashmir resolved
NEW DELHI: During the first visit by a Pakistani head of state to India in seven years, President Asif Ali Zardari and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stood together on Sunday to express their resolve to normalise the strained relations between the two countries.
The Indian prime minister and the visiting Pakistani president exchanged views in a one-on-one meeting, agreeing that their countries should adopt a step-by-step approach to resolve their differences and build on a recent thaw in their tense relations.
“Relations between India and Pakistan should become normal. That’s our common desire,” Singh told reporters after the private talks, at which no aides were present.
“We would like to have better relations,” Zardari said.
Singh said he had accepted an invitation from Zardari to visit Pakistan as soon as mutually acceptable dates are worked out. Before Sunday, the two had not met since June 2009, when they met in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg.
“We have a number of issues, but we are willing to find practical and pragmatic solutions to all those issues,” Singh said. “That’s the message President Zardari and I would like to convey.”
He said, “The relations between India and Pakistan should become normal. That’s our common desire. We are willing to find practical, pragmatic solutions to all those issues.”
Singh told Zardari that “it was imperative to bring the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks to justice and prevent activities aimed against India from Pakistani soil”, Indian Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai told reporters. Singh said the Indian people would judge progress in the bilateral relationship based on what actions Islamabad took to curb terror groups operating out of Pakistan. He pressed Pakistan to act against Saeed, seen as the mastermind of the Mumbai attacks,” Mathai said.
“Zardari told Singh the two sides needed to discuss the issue further and this would be likely when their interior secretaries meet in the next few weeks. He insisted that the two sides should resolve their decades-old disputes over the Sir Creek river estuary, Siachen and Kashmir,” Mathai said.
He said Singh offered Zardari India’s help in finding 124 Pakistani soldiers and 11 civilians engulfed by an avalanche on Saturday near the 6,000-metre-high Siachen glacier in Kashmir – known as the world’s highest battlefield.
Zardari thanked Singh but did not immediately respond to the offer to help rescue teams, backed by helicopters and sniffer dogs combing an area one kilometre wide with snow up to 80 feet deep.
On his first visit to India as part of the 40-member delegation, Zardari’s son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, stood behind the leaders, in a sign of his growing role in politics. agencies
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk