Foreign Minister-level talks collapsed due to India’s internal problems: Zardari

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has said that the talks between the Foreign Ministers of Pakistan and India failed due to India’s internal problems.

Zardari said this while talking to a delegation of journalists from Sukkur and Larkana press clubs at the Sindh Chief Minister’s House on Friday, The Nation reports.

The India-Pakistan talks, which resumed in Islamabad 18 months after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, had ended in a deadlock, where Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi criticized Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna for not being prepared and continuously receiving instructions from India on the phone.

The three-day dialogue hit a low when Pakistan claimed that India was “selective” in its approach, and was obsessed with the “terrorism” issue.

“India’s approach was selective. When they say all issues are on table, they should not be selective,” Qureshi had said, a day after the Foreign Minister-level talks.

“If we focus on just one issue (terrorism), it will be difficult for Pakistan to move forward. We are ready to negotiate. We are not in a hurry. When they are ready, we are ready to discuss all issues and show flexibility,” he added.

India, however, rejected Pakistan’s contention, and asserted that all “core and burning” issues were deliberated upon with the aim of bridging the trust deficit.

“The very fact that I went to Islamabad and I talked about core issues in our relationship…if you consider it as a gain, I am ready to go along with it,” Krishna had said.

“We talked about some of the burning issues that confront the two countries. To that extent that we have contributed in a manner where the trust deficit is getting reduced as part of the Confidence Building Measure,” he added. (ANI)