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Pakistan, India open bilateral talks

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Islamabad, June 25, IRNA -- Foreign Secretaries of India and Pakistan on Thursday opened bilateral talks to remove misunderstanding and chalk out steps to counter terrorism, officials said.

Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao, top Indian diplomat to visit Islamabad since the 2008 Mumbai attacks, met her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir to discuss resuming the composite dialogue process.

Rao and Bashir first one-to-one talks and later joined by delegations from both sides.

Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani and his Indian counterpart asked the top diplomats to prepare the ground for a meeting of the Foreign Ministers on July 15.

On her arrival, Rao said on Wednesday that the visit was a kind of exploration for reducing trust deficit that exists between the two countries.

"We are going there with a clear-eyed understanding of these difficulties and there complexities."

"I can't come before you and say that there is a magic formulae with which we can solve these problems. We can't just wave a wand and expect everything to disappear suddenly. I think we have to clear-eyed and be realistic," she said.

Rao will call on Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, officials said.

Foreign Secretary Bashir told the Pakistani media that the meeting would essentially prepare the ground for the meeting of the Foreign Ministers on July 15.

"We will see what can be identified as doable, and then take it to the Foreign Ministers-level. In this meeting, we will try and find a common denominator. There has to be a comfort level on both sides, which will help us pick up the doable for the Foreign Ministers."

India had put a pause on talks with Pakistan after the wake of the Mumbai attacks, blamed on the Pakistan-based terror group Lashker-e-Taiba.

Officials of the two countries have since met only on the margins of international or regional forums but have not yet agreed to resume the stalled composite dialogue process.