India, Pak Decide to Start Foreign Minister Level Talks

India and Pakistan has decided to restart bilateral dialogue at the level of foreign ministers as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Yousuf Raza Gilani held a meeting in Thimphu on the sidelines of SAARC summit in their first substantive engagement in less than a year, said media reports.

In the meeting, the two leaders decided that India and Pakistan should keep the channels of dialogue between them open to restore ‘trust and confidence’ in the bilateral relationship, reports said.

The agenda of the meeting, first between Singh and Gilani since their dialogue in Sharm-el-Sheik in Egypt on July 16, was terrorism and the ‘slow progress’ of Pakistan’s probe into Mumbai attacks.

Singh and Gilani first met accompanied by their delegations and later a one-on-one meeting was held between them at Bhutan house.

“The prime ministers held very good talks in a free and frank manner. They agreed that cooperation between the two countries is vital for the people of South Asia to realise their destiny,” foreign secretary Nirupama Rao was quoted as saying.

“Prime Minister expressed India’s concern over the slow progress of Mumbai trial in Pakistan to Prime Minister Gilani,” Rao was quoted as saying.

During the discussions, Singh told Gilani that India wants to discuss all issues of mutual concern through dialogue but the issue of terrorism is holding back the progress, said reports quoting Rao.

Rao said that the two prime ministers decided that foreign ministers and foreign secretaries of the two countries should meet as soon as possible to ‘restore trust and confidence’ in the relations, reports said.

In the meanwhile, Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told a news conference that the meeting between the two leaders ended on a positive note and he would be engaging with his Indian counterpart S M Krishna at an appropriate time, said reports.

He also welcomed home minister P Chidambaram to Islamabad on June 26 for the SAARC home minister’s conference, reports said.

Qureshi said that the meeting has ‘changed the climate’ between the two countries, said reports.

In response to a query if the foreign ministers-level talks meant resumption of the Composite Dialogue process between the two countries, Rao said that she does not want to get into details about the nomenclature of the talks, reports said.

To another question, she declined to go into details of the issues that would constitute the talks, saying ‘all concerns’ would be discussed, said reports.

(Based on media reports)