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Foreign secys of India, Pak discuss resumption of talks

The foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan met late last night to work out modalities for resumption of their stalled dialogue to resolve bilateral differences, including on Jammu and Kashmir.

Foreign Secretary K Raghunath and his Pakistani counterpart Shamshad Ahmed met for 90 minutes within hours of the prime ministers of India and Pakistan directing them to fix the date and venue for continuing their dialogue which broke off last September.

Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan Satish Chandra and Pakistan High Commissioner to India Ashraf Jahangir Qazi were also present at the meeting.

Sources said a formal meeting between the two foreign secretaries would have to be held before the Non-Aligned Movement summit, scheduled to be held in the last week of August in South Africa, where the two prime ministers are to meet again.

The two foreign secretaries would have another meeting later today to finalise the modalities for the talks.

Raghunath and Ahmed this morning accompanied their prime ministers to the beach resort of Betota, 55 km from Colombo, where leaders of the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation leaders are having their day-long retreat to informally discuss issues facing the association.

The retreat at the Taj Exotica hotel will provide the two foreign secretaries the benefit of the presence of their prime ministers in their discussions.

Meanwhle, Jaswant Singh, who represented India at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations meetings in Manila as the prime minister's special envoy, arrived in Colombo late last night. He too accompanied Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to Betota. Other ministers who will assist Vajpayee in his discussions with other SAARC leaders are Commerce Minister R K Hegde and Minister of State for External Affairs Vasundhara Raje.

The talks between the two foreign secretaries were adjourned in New Delhi last September after the two delegations developed differences over the interpretation of the joint statement issued by the two sides at the end of their previous meeting in Islamabad in June.

The Islamabad round had identified eight issues for discussions between the two sides. These were peace and security, including confidence-building measures, Jammu and Kashmir, Siachen, Wullar barrage/Tulbul navigation project, Sir creek, terrorism and drug-trafficking, economic and commercial co-operation and promotion of friendly relations.

While Islamabad insisted that working groups be formed to deal with all the eight issues, including Jammu and Kashmir, New Delhi maintained that peace and security and Jammu and Kashmir should be dealt with at the level of the foreign secretaries.

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