ISLAMABAD: India’s foreign secretary Nirupama Rao arrived in Pakistan for peace talks on Thursday, part of efforts to stabilise South Asia as the United States prepares to draw down troops from Afghanistan.
A four-year peace process between the nuclear-armed rivals collapsed after gunmen killed 166 people in Mumbai in November 2008.
India blamed the attack on Pakistani militants from the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba group and Islamabad acknowledged that the plot was hatched at least partly on its soil.
Following a hiatus of more than two years, the two countries announced talks would resume after a meeting between Pakistani foreign secretary Salman Bashir and his Indian counterpart Rao in Bhutan in February.
The two civil servants, the highest-ranking career diplomats in their respective ministries, will now come together for two days of discussions in Islamabad before Pakistan’s foreign minister is due to visit India next month.
Indian diplomat Sidharth Zutshi told AFP that Rao had arrived for the talks, which both sides confirmed would begin at 3.30 pm.
“We expect that the talks will be positive and forward looking,” Pakistani foreign ministry spokeswoman Tehmina Janjua told AFP.
She said while discussions would focus on Jammu and Kashmir, peace and security and confidence building, the two sides can also raise any other issues since this round is taking place at foreign secretary level.
The international community has been pushing the two sides to get back to the negotiating table to help ease tensions in an already volatile region.
“We have to be patient, realistic and positive,” Indian Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna said this week, calling for terrorism to be dealt with “firmly and transparently”.
After the Mumbai carnage, Delhi and Islamabad began to explore a resumption of structured talks last year, and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani met in Thimphu in April 2010.
Talks on the disputed Himalayan glacier of Siachen, where troops have clashed intermittently since 1984, concluded a month ago without progress.
“There will be no major breakthrough in the talks but I am sure that the process will now go on to enable the two countries to discuss and sort out issues,” Pakistani foreign policy analyst A.H.Nayyar told AFP.
Source:www.dawn.com
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