Pakistan, India foreign secretaries prepare ground for minister talks

Foreign secretaries from Pakistan and India met Tuesday in New Delhi to prepare the ground for the first foreign minister peace talks in a year between the nuclear-armed neighbours.
Indian foreign secretary Nirupama Rao welcomed her counterpart Salman Bashir for closed-door discussions ahead of the meeting between Indian Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna and Pakistan’s Hina Rabbani Khar on Wednesday.
India suspended peace talks with Pakistan after the 2008 Mumbai attacks which was blamed on Pakistan-based militants.
Since then, both countries have taken tentative steps to get the process back on track, focusing on basic confidence-building measures (CBMs) and leaving aside core territorial disputes.
“This meeting will look at what are the series of steps we can take in the months to come,” a top foreign ministry official said during a weekend briefing, on condition of anonymity.
“We will announce some CBMs and there will be more meetings in the future and it would be good if we can expand the scope for people-to-people contacts,” the source said.