Thaindian News

Thimphu, April 29 (IANS) Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani will meet for formal talks after nine months in the scenic Bhutanese capital Thursday in a bid to narrow the perception gap between them and explore possibilites of resuming their long-stalled dialogue and normalisation of ties.
There is no official word on the agenda of the Thimphu meeting that comes on the sidelines of the 16th summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). South Asian leaders had on the opening day of the summit asked India and Pakistan to mend ties and not be an obstacle to regional cooperation.

The peace process was called off following the terror strike in Mumbai in November 2008 that left 166 people dead. India blames Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) for the Mumbai mayhem and wants action to be taken against them.

Indian leaders have been maintaining that prosecution of the guilty, including LeT chief Hafiz Saeed, holds the key to early resumption of the “composite dialogue”.

Pakistan maintains that it has done enough to prosecute the terrorists responsible for the Mumbai attack as seven of those accused have been arrested and their trial in under way.

“Prime Minister (Manmohan Singh) will of course want Pakistan to conduct speedy trial of the Mumbai attack and punish the guilty. If from Gilani he gets the assurance, formal dialogue with Pakistan can resume,” an official said here, but refused to be identified as the Indian camp is tightlipped about the agenda and outcome of the meeting.

The two leaders will meet in the afternoon at Bhutan House in the SAARC Village, created especially for the South Asian summit.

After shaking hands for a photo op, Gilani and Manmohan will hold talks. This will be followed by separate press briefings by the foreign secretaries of the two countries — India’s Nirupama Rao and Pakistan’s Salman Bashir.

This will be the first meeting between the two leaders after their talks at Sharm el-Sheikh in July 2009. A joint statement at the Eygptian resort town included Pakistan’s concerns about India’s role in the unrest in Balochistan that many in India saw as an implicit admission of Indian involvement.

The foreign secretaries of the two countries had met in New Delhi in February this year but the talks ended in a stalemate after India insisted that the composite dialogue would resume only after Pakistan prosecutes the terrorist leaders on its soil who were responsible for the Mumbai carnage.