India willing to hold another FS-level meeting with Pakistan
NEW DELHI, April 3: After the ice-breaking February 25 Foreign Secretary-level talks, India has conveyed to Pakistan its willingness to have the second round of parleys but is yet to get any response.
India also has not heard anything from Pakistan on the three dossiers given to it containing names of 34 terrorists wanted here, including LeT chief Hafiz Saeed, with a demand for handing them over and other effective actions.Sources said India has told Pakistan that the second round of talks can be held but they have to “come back to us”.
The February 25 talks held in Delhi were an ice-breaker after the 26/11 attacks when the dialogue process was put on hold by India as terrorists from Pakistan were responsible for the strike.The initiative for those talks was taken by India and were intended to discuss terrorism, which India says is the “core issue”.India is still not satisfied by Pakistan’s actions with regard to ending terrorism but it conveyed to it that the channels of communication are open from the Indian side, they said.
At the day-long talks between Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao and her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir on February 25, the two sides noted the “trust” deficit in the ties and decided to “remain in touch and continue endeavour to restore trust”. India had said that the trust had been “erased” by the Mumbai attacks.
With regard to 26/11, India “acknowledged” that Pakistan had taken certain steps to bring perpetrators to justice, but “pointed out that these did not go far enough to unravel the full conspiracy behind the Mumbai attack and to award exemplary punishment to all culprits.” (PTI)
