Peace talks: Officials working out date of Nawaz-Singh meeting

Foreign Office says the meeting would be a useful opportunity to engage in a constructive dialogue.

ISLAMABAD:

Pakistan and India are going to finalise the date for talks between Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session in New York.

“The two countries are in contact and the date for the meeting is being worked out,” revealed the Foreign Office (FO) spokesperson Aizaz Ahmed Chaudhry at his weekly news briefing on Thursday.

He confirmed that the two prime ministers would meet later this month despite the ongoing tensions at the Line of Control (LoC).

“The meeting would be a useful opportunity to engage in a constructive dialogue to discuss way of building mutual trust and improving bilateral relations,” Aizaz told reporters.

“Pakistan has always followed the policy of restraint and responsibility,” he said.

Ahead of Manmohan-Sharif meeting, the PM’s Adviser on National Security and Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz is due to meet Indian External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid in Bishkek, Kirgizstan at the margins of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit on September 13.



Pakistan’s High Commissioner in New Delhi Salman Bashir confirmed the meeting between the two premiers. “The two neighbours will discuss measures to de-escalate tensions along the de facto border that divides Kashmir,” he said.

This will be the second meeting between Aziz and Salman in less than three months. They have already met during the Asean meeting in Brunei in July.

Sources said the Sartaj-Salman meeting would finalise the agenda of the summit talks later this month in New York. Pakistan is hoping that the meeting would pave the way for the resumption of stalled dialogue with India.

The two neighbours were supposed to begin the third round of composite dialogue in January this year but the process had to be put on hold due to the LoC tensions.


Published in The Express Tribune, September 6^th, 2013.