India, Pakistan foreign secretaries to meet in Thimpu
The foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan will meet on the sidelines a SAARC Standing Committee meeting in Bhutan capital Thimpu in February.
The Official Spokesperson of India’s Ministry of External Affairs confirmed that Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao is likely to meet her Pakistani counterpart (Salman Bashir) in Thimphu.
The meeting might take plance on the sidelines of the SAARC Standing Committee meeting there on Feb 6-7.
Earlier this month, Pakistan Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Gilani has said that talks with India is the only way forward to resolve prickly bilateral issues, including Kashmir.
Gilani said resumption of dialogue was the only way since war cannot resolve any issue.
India’s external affairs minister S M Krishna in reaction to Gilani’s remarks said Pakistan should first dismantle the terror infrastructure on its soil to pave the way for a sustained dialogue.
The composite dialogue between India and Pakistan broke down after the audacious 2008 Mumbai attack by Pakistani terrorists that killed at least 166 people in luxury hotels, railway station and hospital among other places.
Foreign Ministers of India and Pakistan had met in Islamabad in July last year but their talks remained inconclusive while the two foreign secretaries had met last in September in New York on the sidelines of UN General Assembly but with no major success.
Earlier, Pakistan media reports said, its foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, who was invited to New Delhi by his Indian counterpart S M Krishna in July last year, would come to India if talks between the secretaries pave the way for a meaningful and result oriented dialogue.
Pakistan Foreign Office Spokesman Abdul Basit on Saturday said that Pakistan had always been in favour of composite dialogue with India because it was the only way to settle the longstanding Kashmir issue amicably.
?We are waiting for the outcome of the meeting of the foreign secretaries of two countries to make a final decision in this (visit of Qureshi to India) connection,? Basit said.