ISLAMABAD – In response to India’s fresh invitation to Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi to visit New Delhi for the revival of Indo-Pak dialogue, Pakistan has made it clear that this important trip would take place only if India agrees on a “comprehensive agenda” for talks on all issues, including Kashmir.
Nonetheless, Pakistan has accepted the Indian offer of holding a foreign secretaries’ meeting on the sidelines of upcoming SAARC Foreign Secretaries Conference slated to be held in Thimphu (Bhutan) in the first week of February.
Talks between Pakistan and India were broken off after the Mumbai attacks, which India claimed were planned in Pakistan. “We have received an invitation by India for the foreign minister’s visit to New Delhi. Pakistan, has in principle, no objection to this visit, but it ought to be meaningful and that is possible only if our neighbour agrees to hold talks on Kashmir and all other issues and doesn’t confine the negotiations to terrorism,” said a senior official at the Foreign Office. “We have conveyed this to New Delhi,” he said.
“The visit of Foreign Minister Qureshi to India to pave the way for the revival of Indo-Pak composite dialogue is contingent upon the positive outcome of the meeting between the Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir and his Indian counterpart Nirupama Rao in Thimphu,” the official said. Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit said no decision had been made so far on the foreign minister’s visit to India, adding it was wrong to assume that Islamabad had accepted the Indian invitation in this regard.
He said Pakistan would decide to send Foreign Minister Qureshi to New Delhi only if the agenda for the meeting included a broad range of issues, including the core dispute of Kashmir.
Earlier, Online reported Indian External Affairs Minister SM Krishna as saying on Friday that India was expecting Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi’s visit to the country in the next couple of months, before which the foreign secretaries of the two countries would meet to “clear the ground for a very productive meeting” between the two foreign ministers.
Krishna rejected a contention that his previous meeting with his counterpart in Islamabad failed due to a lack of proper ground work done by officials in the two countries.
He recalled that at the time of his meeting with Qureshi in July last year, there were interactions between the foreign secretaries of two countries. He said India was in touch with the government of Pakistan on the issue of exporting onions. “We have initiated talks and before not too long, we are hopeful of finding a solution to this…..” he said.
Asked about the agenda for the meeting, the minister said the country would like to engage Pakistan to resolve outstanding issues.
Pakistan accepts Indian offer for dialogue
