Pak to finalise strategy for foreign secretary-level talks with India next week

ISLAMABAD - The Pakistan Foreign Office (FO) has called on an important meeting on February 10 to prepare agendas for the proposed foreign secretary-level talks with India.

According to sources, the FO has summoned top officials from the Defence and Commerce ministries for the meeting.

Officials from the Indus Water Commission, the Kashmir Affairs Ministry and various security organisations are also likely to attend the meeting, The Dawn reports.

Pakistan’s High Commissioner to India Shahid Malik has also been summoned from New Delhi for the high level meeting.

“The purpose of the inter-agency process is to develop a comprehensive strategy and take all stakeholders on board,” The Dawn quoted a senior official, as saying.

Earlier, Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao had called her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir to inform about New Delhi’s proposals to hold talks concerning all important issues pending before both countries.

Rao, however, clarified that the focus of the talks would be on terrorism and the prosecution of people involved in the November 2008 Mumbai attacks.

Islamabad has been insisting on resumption of full-scale bilateral dialogue, but New Delhi maintains that Pakistan must first bring the 26/11 perpetrators to justice.

On Friday, Shahid Malik met Rao in New Delhi and said that Pakistan wants Kashmir and other bilateral issues to be included in dialogue with India.

Addressing the media after holding a meeting with Foreign Secretary for nearly any hour, Malik said: “We are not going to shy away on the issue of terrorism. We will discuss it, as we also have issues related to terrorism.”

He also said that Pakistan would raise the Kashmir issue with India on every forum possible.

“It would be like feeling the pulse, primarily,” sources privy to the meeting said, adding that the venue is not an issue, and only the timing of the meeting remains to be decided, which may take place later this month. (ANI)