News
Sunday, January 09, 2011
Pak, India officials to meet in Bhutan
* FO says foreign secretaries will meet on margins of SAARC Standing Committee meeting in Thimphu on February 6-7
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani and Indian officials will meet at a regional conference in Bhutan next month to resume a rapprochement process between the two countries, an official said on Saturday.
The talks are to be held during a meeting of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in Bhutan, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Abdul Basit said in a statement.
“The foreign secretaries of Pakistan and India will meet on the margins of the SAARC Standing Committee meeting scheduled to take place in Thimphu on 6-7 February 2011,” the statement said.
India suspended a peace dialogue with Pakistan in the wake of the November 2008 Mumbai attacks, which claimed 166 lives, and the two countries recently begun to explore a resumption of structured talks.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi held a meeting with his Indian counterpart SM Krishna in Islamabad in July.
The discussions were the third high-level contact in a six-month thaw, which the United States has encouraged as a means of boosting regional stability, given the war in Afghanistan.
But the talks ended on a sour note with Qureshi blaming India for a “selective focus on terror” and ignoring the thorny issues that separated the South Asian neighbours.
Relations between the two countries, which have fought three wars since the subcontinent was partitioned in 1947, have been plagued by border and resource disputes, and atrocities in the Indian-occupied Kashmir.
Abdul Basit said Pakistan had always been in favour of a composite dialogue with India because it was the only way to settle the longstanding Kashmir issue amicably.
In a brief telephonic interview with PTV, the spokesman said that when the Indian foreign minister visited last year, he invited Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi to visit India.
If foreign secretaries succeeded in evolving a comprehensive agenda for the resumption of composite dialogue, Qureshi would definitely visit India.a
“We are waiting for the outcome of the meeting to make a final decision in this connection,” the spokesman said. app
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk