Pakistan to stress resolution of issues with India

Pakistan will urge India to engage in “meaningful, result-oriented and sustained dialogue” to settle the Kashmir and other bilateral disputes when Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani meets his Indian counterpart Dr Manmohan Singh on November 11 on the sidelines of 17th SAARC Summit in the Maldives. Gilani will lead the Pakistani delegation at the summit of South Asian nations, which is scheduled for November 10 and 11, 2011. This year’s summit’s theme is ‘Building Bridges’, which means enhanced focus on increasing transportation and communication links, promoting regional trade and investment and free movement of people to facilitate their interaction across the SAARC countries’ borders. “Pakistan also looks to build bridges with India like other regional states. The message from Islamabad will be plain and clear: Islamabad wants meaningful and result-oriented dialogue and a sustained one that helps in the settlement of Kashmir, Siachen, Sir Creek and all other
issues on the composite dialogue agenda and Prime Minister Gilani will himself deliver this message to his Indian counterpart during their meeting in Maldives,” said a senior Pakistani official here on Sunday, requesting anonymity. He said Pakistan would tell India it did not want the peace process to get derailed again after any subversive act the way it happened in November 2008, when terrorists struck in Mumbai and New Delhi suspended dialogue with Islamabad after blaming it for supporting the militant that attacked India’s financial hub.
Pakistan’s military and civilian leaders have undergone serious in-house consultations before the meeting and they feel that now is the time the South Asian nuclear neighbours should move towards the settlement of bilateral issues no matter how complicated they are. “We feel that there have been decades-long talks on Kashmir and other issues and off late the two sides have been able to come up with important confidence-building measures, but unfortunately none of the eight major issues on the composite dialogue agenda has been resolved. It’s time now to strive for their settlement,” the official said. Another Pakistani official told Pakistan Today that the talks for normalisation of trade ties between the two countries and for the purpose of granting Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status to India would also be an important part of Gilani’s talks with Singh.
FOUR AGREEMENTS: Meanwhile, Indian Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai told reporters on Sunday the Indian premier would ink four agreements at the summit covering the establishment of a SAARC seed bank, multilateral arrangement on recognition of conformity assessment, and rapid response to natural disaster and implementation of regional standards. Foreign secretaries of SAARC will meet on November 7 and 8 to finalise the agenda of the summit and the summit declaration.