India, Pakistan hold peace talks

Foreign Secretaries of India and Pakistan are meeting in Islamabad on Thursday for crucial talks on the Kashmir issue and confidence-building measures aimed at boosting the peace process between them that was resumed earlier this year.

Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao is leading the Indian delegation for two-day talks with her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir.Meanwhile, on the eve of the Indo-Pak Foreign Secretary-level talks, India has said it is making a "determined bid" to work out a cordial relationship with Pakistan and that all issues that "bug" the ties, including terrorism, will be discussed.

At the two-day meeting beginning Thursday in Islamabad, India is also expected to raise the issue of the slow pace of ongoing Mumbai terror case trial in Pakistan as well as the larger conspiracy behind the 26/11 attacks.

"All issues that bug our relationship are going to be discussed when Foreign Secretary visits Islamabad," External Affairs Minister S M Krishna told reporters accompanying him on his way back home after a three-day visit to Myanmar.

He, however, asked everyone to refrain from speculating about the talks, saying "let not expectations be pitched too high because this is one of the relationships we are trying to cultivate in the last few months."

After the setback in the relations between India and Pakistan post-Mumbai terror attacks, Krishna said he thinks "we are making a determined bid to work out a cordial relationship."

Asked whether India would raise the issue of terrorism during the meeting, he said: "Terrorism is going to be one of the issues that is going to be naturally discussed with Pakistan.

"The whole region is terror-infested. I would only said all issues concerning terrorism and various other issues between our countries will be discussed."

Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao said the issue of "terrorism that inflicts our region is of utmost concern to everyone in the region." Rao said: "What Pakistan has been telling us in the recent months and days is that Pakistan is seriously affected by this problem and that many Pakistanis have also fallen victim to terrorism."

Asked about her recent statement that India seeks "satisfactory closure" from Pakistan with regard to Mumbai attacks, she said, "There is an ongoing trial in Pakistan and it has rather moved slowly."

"When we talk of closure, what we are implying is that justice should be done in this matter and those responsible for triggering this terror attacks and also conspired to attack our people should be brought to justice. This is what closure means."

Talking about her upcoming talks, Rao said the idea was to reduce trust deficit and build more confidence in the Indo-Pak relations and to strengthen exchanges between the two countries to have a "meaningful dialogue on all outstanding issue that have complicated our relationship in the past."

She said the talks were not an "event" but a process and that both sides will exchange ideas that she hopes will lead to more understanding and more confidence.
Asked about the confidence building measures on the nuclear front, Rao said: "Confidence building has to include a number of areas and if we do more to reduce the tensions between the two countries and to reduce the trust deficit, it will greatly promote the relationships between the two countries. So, it makes sense to discuss confidence building measures in all these areas."
In the talks on Jammu and Kashmir, Peace and Security and confidence building measures, the Indian side is expected to voice its concern over the nexus between ISI and 26/11 attackers as highlighted during the trial of Pakistani-Canadian Tahawwur Rana in Chicago.

"Foreign Secretaries of India and Pakistan will meet in Islamabad on June 23-24 to discuss peace and security, including CBMs; Jammu and Kashmir, and promotion of friendly exchanges," External Affairs Ministry said in a statement in New Delhi on Friday.Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao will be meeting her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir for the second time since February when they held talks in Thimphu in Bhutan on the sidelines of SAARC Ministerial conference.

During that meeting, the two sides had agreed to resume their comprehensive dialogue on all bilateral issues to resolve outstanding issues in a constructive and forward-looking manner, two years after India put on hold the Composite Dialogue process with Pakistan in the aftermath of the 2008 Mumbai attacks.On Monday, External Affairs Minister S M Krishna said the two Foreign Secretaries will discuss all bilateral issues and that Rana's confessions will also be one of the important issues that will be taken up by India.

India and Pakistan held talks on peace and security issues in Islamabad on Thursday, part of efforts to stabilise South Asia as the United States prepares to draw down troops from Afghanistan.Concerns over terrorism are likely to dominate India’s agenda since US troops killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan and since a four-year peace process collapsed when gunmen killed 166 people in Mumbai in November 2008.India blamed the attack on Pakistani militants from the banned Lashkar-i-Taiba group and Islamabad acknowledged that the plot was hatched at least partly on its soil.Ending a more than two-year freeze, the two countries announced peace talks would resume after a meeting in February between foreign secretary Salman Bashir and his Indian counterpart Nirupama Rao.

Rao said she had come “with an open mind and a constructive spirit” to work towards building “trust and confidence” that would eventually lead to a normalisation of relations between the nuclear-armed rivals.

Both sides say talks will focus on the fate of the divided Himalayan region of Kashmir, peace and security and confidence building, in preparation for a scheduled visit by Pakistan’s foreign minister to India next month.

“We expect that the talks will be positive and forward looking,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Tehmina Janjua told AFP. A senior ministry official told AFP the talks started around 3:30 pm.

No breakthroughs are expected, but the contacts are considered a key element of efforts to stabilise the region after US President Barack Obama announced the start of US troop withdrawals from Afghanistan.

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”.New Delhi has long accused its neighbour of harbouring militant groups, but analysts say it is becoming increasingly concerned that growing unrest in Pakistan could compromise the safety of the country’s nuclear arsenal.

Relations between India and Pakistan, which have fought three wars since the subcontinent was partitioned in 1947, have been plagued by border and resource disputes, and accusations of Pakistani militant activity against India.

Two of the three wars were over Kashmir, where militants have been fighting New Delhi’s rule for two decades in an insurgency that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.After the Mumbai carnage, Delhi and Islamabad began to explore a resumption of structured talks last year, and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Prime Minister 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 media.Media agencies