Hina Khar twice met Krishna in Maldives

In the backdrop of shrinking trust deficit, Foreign Affairs Minister Hina Khar and India’s External Affairs Minister SM Krishna on Wednesday discussed key issues, which have dogged bilateral relations for years, foreign media reported.
Both Khar and Krishna met for about 30 minutes at the convention centre in Gan, one of the islands of Maldives. Significantly, both the ministers met thrice on Wednesday, once over coffee and the second time over lunch on the sidelines of SAARC ministerial meeting.
Krishna had said that the trust deficit with Pakistan was shrinking which was acknowledged by Khar also. Positive signs have been witnessed in bilateral ties lately, including Pakistan’s decision to grant the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) trade status to India, The Hindu newspaper reported.
Krishna also welcomed Pakistan’s decision to normalise its trade ties with India, and looked forward to full implementation of SAFTA obligations by all SAARC member states to enhance intra-regional trade. Khar told a private Indian channel that while the two sides have many miles to move ahead, the recent improvement in environment was a welcome sign.
“I think we can certainly say from our side that we look at this environment to have been improved considerably and the trust deficit that typically exists between the two countries and has existed for many years, to have been reduced to a large order,” she said. On the bilateral talks, she said she expected them to further improve the positive environment that has existed between the two countries.
Foreign Affairs Secretary Salman Bashir said such meetings add to the feel good factor. “More contacts, more meetings are forward looking. We did discuss the meeting at summit level on Thursday,” he said. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani is scheduled to meet his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh on Thursday morning.