ISLAMABAD: Top Indian and Pakistani diplomats pledged Thursday to strive for sustained dialogue to get the nations’ fragile relations back on track and deny militants space to derail the reconciliation process.
Indian foreign secretary, Nirupama Rao, and her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir held one-on-one talks and met with their teams to craft the agenda for a meeting of their ministers on July 15.
“Pakistan and India should work towards restoring confidence and building trust with a view to making it possible to have a comprehensive, sustained and meaningful dialogue,” Bashir told a joint news conference with Rao.
“After this engagement, I feel much more optimistic about a good outcome at the ministerial level and good prospects for the two countries in terms of our relationship,” he said.
Indian foreign secretary Nirupama Rao said India had raised concerns about terrorism and said the countries had to work together to deny militants the opportunity to sabotage their dialogue.
“We should jointly work together towards our goal of resolution of outstanding issues and also to dealing with the dangers, with the threat, with the evils of terrorism,” she said.
“We must deny terrorist elements any opportunity to derail the process of improvement of relations between our two countries.
“We owe it to our people to chart a way forward, to narrow differences and ensure collaborative engagement.”
Indian and Pakistani foreign ministers S.M. Krishna and Shah Mehmood Qureshi are scheduled to meet in Islamabad on July 15 — the third major contact in six months between countries that have fought three wars in 60 years.
Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan have started a tentative reconciliation process since relations crashed to a new low after Mumbai attacks that left 166 people dead in November 2008.
India and the United States blamed the attack on Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a militant group based in Pakistan and linked to the Pakistani spy service.
New Delhi suspended a four-year peace process and demanded that Islamabad bring to justice the perpetrators of what is considered India’s September 11.
A Pakistani anti-terrorism court has charged seven suspects in connection with the Mumbai attacks, including alleged mastermind Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi and alleged LeT operative Zarar Shah, but Pakistan has said it needs more evidence.
The Indian and Pakistani prime ministers met in April on the sidelines of a regional summit in Bhutan, which set in motion a process to revive suspended contacts at various levels of government.
Thursday’s meeting was the first meeting in Islamabad between the foreign secretaries since May 2008.
Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram is due to arrive in Islamabad for a meeting of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation on Thursday. He is expected to meet Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik.
