Peace dialogue: ‘Talks only way forward’

PM meets Indian delegation ahead of resumption of dialogue with India.

ISLAMABAD:

Pakistan desires to resolve all outstanding issues with India peacefully, said Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani to an Indian delegation as both countries plan to resume peace talks next week after a stalemate since the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

“Wars are not the solution, talks are the only way forward,” Gilani said on Wednesday while talking to an Indian delegation which includes actors and academics, led by Indian journalist Kuldip Nayar. “Our government would like to continue working with India to resolve all outstanding issues peacefully in just manner.”

The comments from the prime minister came days ahead of a proposed meeting between the interior secretaries from both countries in what would be the resumption of peace talks for the first time in more than two years. In 2004, Islamabad and New Delhi started what both sides called the ‘composite dialogue’.

Both countries had come to the brink of a fifth war following an attack on the Indian parliament allegedly carried out by a Pakistani militant organisation with allegedly close links to the country’s intelligence agencies.

The talks were stalled after commando-style attacks at multiple locations in the Indian city of Mumbai on November 26, 2008, blamed on the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), a front for the banned militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

Published in The Express Tribune, March 24^th, 2011.