Pak agrees to foreign secy level talks on Feb 25

After a 14-month hiatus, India and Pakistan will hold foreign secretary-level talks on February 25 during which Islamabad will raise all "core issues" and press for resumption of Composite Dialogue, which was suspended after Mumbai attacks.

"It was decided that foreign secretary-level talks between the two countries would be held on February 25 in New Delhi," the Prime Minister's Office said in a statement in Islamabad, accepting the offer made by India about two weeks back.

Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao had called up her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir and invited him to New Delhi for talks. She had proposed February 18 or 25 for it. The PMO statement said the decision on holding the talks was taken at a meeting between Prime Minister

Yousuf Raza Gilani and Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi. Bashir later called up Rao to convey Pakistan's "acceptance" to the Indian offer, the External Affairs Ministry said in New Delhi.

The Pakistani PMO statement said Bashir, who was present at the meeting, was directed by Gilani that the talks should be "result-oriented and meaningful", it said. It said Bashir "should raise the core issues and impress upon India the need for the expeditious resolution (of these) through resumption of the Composite Dialogue". The Indian side, while making the offer of talks, had said that these would focus on terrorism emanating from Pakistan and made it clear that composite dialogue could not resume until "the environment of terror or the threat of terror" persisted.