Pakistan said on Thursday it would hold expert level talks on conventional and nuclear confidence-building measures (CBMs) with India here on December 26-27.
“As part of the resumed dialogue process between Pakistan and India, the fifth round of expert level talks on Conventional Confidence Building Measures, and the sixth round of expert level talks on Nuclear Confidence Building Measures, will be held in Islamabad on 26 and 27 December 2011, respectively,” Foreign Office Spokesman Abdul Basit told reporters at his weekly press briefing.
He said Foreign Ministry Additional Secretary (UN & EC) Munawar Saeed Bhatti would head the Pakistan delegation for both expert groups. On the Indian side, Ministry of External Affairs Director General (Disarmament & International Security Affairs) D Bala Verma would lead the nuclear CBMs group, while Joint Secretary (PAI) Yashwant K Sinha would head the conventional CBMs group, he added.
“The foreign secretaries of the two countries met in Islamabad in June 2011 where both sides, inter alia, agreed to reconvene the two expert groups. These expert groups last met in New Delhi in October 2007,” Basit said.
When his attention was drawn to the statement by the head of a visiting 22-member Afghan delegation that they had serious reservations about contacts between the Taliban and the US in Qatar, he said: “I can see their point but as far as Pakistan is concerned we are convinced that peace and stability in Afghanistan will remain elusive without genuine reconciliation and, then, it is for Afghans themselves to steer this process and lead it to its logical conclusion. To this end, the people of Afghanistan can always count on Pakistan’s support.” On US Vice President Joe Biden’s statement that the Taliban were not enemies of the United States, he said: “Vice President Joe Biden has made an important statement and at this stage I have no comment to offer.”
