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Vajpayee firm on holding talks with Pak

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee today said that India is committed to the path of discourse and discussion despite no clear sign of tangible results during the bilateral meetings with his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharief in Colombo.

Vajpayee, who returned to New Delhi this evening after attending the tenth SAARC summit, told the media at the airport that he had a very useful bilateral meeting with Sharief which started the process of noramlisation.

When his attention was drawn to Sharief's reported statement that the talks were ''zero and a waste of time,'' Vajpayee smiled and said that since Parliament was in session he would make a detailed statement later.

He said the three major international conferences that have been held during the past one week have clearly established that there is much understanding of India's security priority.

He said he was totally in agreement with the statement of Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga that the success of the SAARC summit has proved prophets of doom wrong.

The prime minister read out a two-page statement before the cameramen and did not wait for any further queries from the the media who wanted to know his reaction about the Indo-Pak talks.

UNI

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