News
Friday, March 05, 2010
Pakistan calls on India to respond to dialogue proposal* FO spokesman says India will not find Pakistan wanting if it agrees to Islamabad’s roadmap
* Pakistan wants to involve political leadership of both countries in dialogueStaff Report
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan asked India on Thursday to accept a roadmap it tabled at the foreign secretary-level talks for the resumption of the composite dialogue process, to make future engagements meaningful.
“It is obviously for India to respond to our... proposal, because the two foreign secretaries can meet again and again and reiterate their respective positions on various subjects, but we cannot expect these open-ended meetings to lead to anything concrete,” Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit told a weekly briefing.
“India will not find Pakistan wanting if it agrees to the roadmap given by Islamabad without any preconditions,” the spokesman was quoted as saying by the AFP news agency. “India, at this point of time, only wants to engage with Pakistan at the foreign secretaries’ level and to have other issues discussed at a working level,” he said.
According to AFP, Basit said there was no point in talks for the sake of talks, and further engagements between the foreign secretaries would not serve any purpose. He said Pakistan would also like to involve the political leadership of the two countries in the dialogue. “That is the crux of our proposal,” he added.
He said Pakistan attended the foreign secretary-level talks to gauge if there had been a shift in New Delhi’s position in the context of engagements with Islamabad. He said Pakistan wanted proper negotiations to resolve long-standing disputes between the two countries.
Basit said Pakistan would never allow its territory to be used for terrorist attacks in Afghanistan or anywhere else in the world.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk