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India, Pakistan begin talks on cautious note
The India-Pakistan foreign secretary level dialogue got underway late on Sunday night with the two sides treading cautiously over contentious issues including the Samjhauta blast case.
While Pakistani foreign secretary Salman Bashir, going into the talks, said that Pakistan wanted to discuss all issues and not just Samjhauta, his counterpart Nirupama Rao reiterated that the talks were going to be exploratory in nature.
While the talks were earlier tentatively scheduled for Sunday afternoon, the dialogue could start only around 9.15pm local time as both sides remained occupied with their commitments throughout the day in the ongoing Saarc ministerial conference. The two officials met eventually in the Taj Tashi hotel where officials from both the countries are staying.
Both foreign secretaries were accompanied by five officials each when they walked into the hall where the meeting was held. Officials accompanying the two foreign secretaries remained non-committal about the outcome but Indian officials said they had "reasonable expectations" even though, as they stated, they had learnt to "expect the unexpected" from Pakistan.
"Dialogue between India and Pakistan is a must if we are to satisfactorily resolve the outstanding issues between our two countries. We have a number of outstanding issues and so we are going into this with an open mind and constructive attitude. I believe my Pakistani counterpart will also have a number of ideas to discuss and so this is going to be an exploratory discussion," Rao said just ahead of the meeting.
Sources said the dialogue process actually started on Saturday with Rao and Bashir meeting "informally" late in the night. An official described it as a precursor meeting ahead of the talks. "Because they were in the same hotel, it was decided that they should meet," he said.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/India-Pakistan-begin-talks-on-cautious-note/articleshow/7439913.cms
The India-Pakistan foreign secretary level dialogue got underway late on Sunday night with the two sides treading cautiously over contentious issues including the Samjhauta blast case.
While Pakistani foreign secretary Salman Bashir, going into the talks, said that Pakistan wanted to discuss all issues and not just Samjhauta, his counterpart Nirupama Rao reiterated that the talks were going to be exploratory in nature.
While the talks were earlier tentatively scheduled for Sunday afternoon, the dialogue could start only around 9.15pm local time as both sides remained occupied with their commitments throughout the day in the ongoing Saarc ministerial conference. The two officials met eventually in the Taj Tashi hotel where officials from both the countries are staying.
Both foreign secretaries were accompanied by five officials each when they walked into the hall where the meeting was held. Officials accompanying the two foreign secretaries remained non-committal about the outcome but Indian officials said they had "reasonable expectations" even though, as they stated, they had learnt to "expect the unexpected" from Pakistan.
"Dialogue between India and Pakistan is a must if we are to satisfactorily resolve the outstanding issues between our two countries. We have a number of outstanding issues and so we are going into this with an open mind and constructive attitude. I believe my Pakistani counterpart will also have a number of ideas to discuss and so this is going to be an exploratory discussion," Rao said just ahead of the meeting.
Sources said the dialogue process actually started on Saturday with Rao and Bashir meeting "informally" late in the night. An official described it as a precursor meeting ahead of the talks. "Because they were in the same hotel, it was decided that they should meet," he said.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/India-Pakistan-begin-talks-on-cautious-note/articleshow/7439913.cms
