Indian External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid has extended the hand of friendship towards Pakistan and has reiterated that dialogue process between the two counties will continue in the future.
In an interview‚ he said former Indian external affairs minister SM Krishna had initiated confidence-building measures with Pakistan‚ which would continue.
Khurshid said Pakistan was one of India’s closest neighbouring country‚ which could not be ignored at any cost. He reiterated that all disputed issues between the two countries would be solved through talks.
He also raised concerns over the political scenario in Pakistan. “As far as Pakistan is concerned, it has been in an extremely troubled situation in a very troubled part of the world and it is a neighbour and that is a concern for us as well. I think the convergence between India and Pakistan today is on issues that for long we insisted, those issues which were a major concern to India both in terms of our security and our dignity. Many of those issues have now emerged in Pakistan itself and have become a concern for the Pakistani establishment. So if there was ever, ever a convergent point on tackling these issues between India and Pakistan, it is there today,” he said.
Khurshid said, “We want to be able to look at possible roots towards being able to work more closely together, be able to understand each other’s problems and to the extent that we can solve each other’s problems mutually and by convergence of opinion on both our countries. I think it is something that we should work towards.”
The Indian government announced a major cabinet reshuffle on Sunday, where 22 federal ministers, including junior ministers were sworn in.
