Jaishankar likely to reach Pakistan after visit to Dhaka on March 2
Pakistan-India foreign secretary level talks are expected to resume in the first week of March in Islamabad, media reports quoting senior diplomats from both sides said on Saturday.
According to the report, diplomats are in touch over the expected visit and are also finalising the agenda of the talks in Islamabad.
“The Indian government has communicated to Pakistan that Indian Foreign Secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar is expected to visit Islamabad in the first week of March to meet his Pakistani counterpart,” a senior Pakistani diplomat, who wished not to be named, said.
The Pakistani diplomat, however, said no exact date has been shared but it was hoped that the final date would also be communicated soon.
A senior Indian diplomat said that S. Jaishankar is likely to arrive in Islamabad in the first week of March. However, the report said that S Jaishankar is scheduled to visit Dhaka on March 2 and Islamabad may come next in his itinerary.
Pakistan and India, who have fought two of their three wars over disputed Muslim-majority Kashmir, have traded blame for an upsurge in firing and shelling which started in October last year.
US Secretary of State John Kerry last month appealed to both nations to resume the talks, saying Washington was “deeply concerned” about a surge in violence on the border in Kashmir.
Relations between the neighbours soured over increased firing along their borders and India called of foreign secretary level talks in August enraged that Pakistan consulted Kashmiri separatist leaders before the dialogue began.
Exchanges of fire across their de facto border and undisputed border further south have killed more than two dozen civilians and forced thousands to flee their homes on both sides.
It is good step as Pakistan is a peaceful country with peace-loving people who believe in co-existence with all countries, and especially with India being our closest neighbor. The considered view being in both states that the regional peace of the entire subcontinent solely depends on the peaceful and friendly relationship between India and Pakistan.
Pakistan’s domestic political instability, the debilitating war on terror in which it is engaged, its deplorable economic performance over the past decade and a half, and the constant American pressure on it because of the crisis in Afghanistan have worked to weaken Pakistan’s position vis-à-vis India. On the other hand, India has been emboldened in the pursuit of its hegemonic ambitions by its much faster economic growth, its rapidly growing military strength, its status as a stable democracy, and the US strategic shift in its favour to contain a rising China. Pakistan has to calculate Indian tactics.
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