News
Friday, June 24, 2011
India hopes to build trust with Pakistan
* Two countries hold first formal talks on Kashmir in two-and-a-half years
* Rao says she has come to Pakistan with an open mind and a constructive spirit
ISLAMABAD: The top diplomats of India and Pakistan held their first formal talks on Kashmir in two-and-a-half years, meeting in Islamabad on Thursday to nudge forward their slow-moving peace process.
Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao was due to hold two days of talks with her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir. With India-Pakistan rivalry often spilling into Afghanistan, the United States is hoping the peace process will gather pace in tandem with its plans to gradually withdraw troops.
“I have come to Pakistan with an open mind and a constructive spirit in order to work towards building trust and confidence,” Rao said in a statement on her arrival in Pakistan. This should lead to “an eventual normalisation of relations for the well-being and prosperity of our two peoples.” The foreign secretaries will prepare for a meeting of foreign ministers in India in July 2011.
Concerns over terrorism are likely to dominate India’s agenda since US troops killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan and since a four-year peace process collapsed when gunmen killed 166 people in Mumbai in November 2008. India blamed the attack on Pakistani militants from the banned Lashkar-e-Tayyaba group and Islamabad acknowledged that the plot was hatched at least partly on its soil. Ending a more than two-year freeze, the two countries announced peace talks would resume after a meeting in February between Pakistani Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir and his Indian counterpart Nirupama Rao.
“We expect that the talks will be positive and forward looking,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tehmina Janjua told AFP. No breakthroughs are expected, but the contacts are considered a key element of efforts to stabilise the region after US President Barack Obama announced the start of US troop withdrawals from Afghanistan. The international community has been pushing the two sides to get back to the negotiating table to help ease tensions in an already volatile region. “We have to be patient, realistic and positive,” Indian Foreign Minister SM Krishna said this week, calling for terrorism to be dealt with “firmly and transparently”. agencies
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk