Thaindian News

Islamabad, Feb 4 (IANS) A day after India indicated its willingness to resume the dialogue with Pakistan, the foreign office said it would not accept anything short of the full resumption of the composite dialogue that New Delhi froze in the wake of the 26/11 Mumbai terror strikes.
“We want result-oriented and sustained dialogue and no format of engagement other than composite dialogue will be acceptable to us,” foreign office spokesperson Abdul Basit told the Dawn newspaper.

Basit said Pakistan would not be interested in “talks for the sake of talks”.

At the same time, he said the foreign office would like to assess any Indian proposal and see if it could help resume the composite dialogue, whose four rounds since 2004 had witnessed practical steps taken by both sides to enhance bilateral cooperation on a number of issues and helped them engage each other in serious discussion on other issues.

India Wednesday indicated its willingness to resume dialogue with Pakistan, saying even “a few steps” by Islamabad in the Mumbai terror probe will “satisfy” it and will make it easier “to carry on normal business”.

Confirming the visit of Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram to Islamabad later this month, External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna said: “We are trying to focus their attention also on terrorism.”

“Chidambaram will get a chance to have very useful exchanges with his counterparts and other leaders in Pakistan,” Krishna told reporters accompanying him on a two-day visit to Kuwait.

“Any step forward in the direction of Pakistan also investigating the Mumbai attacks will certainly make it easier for India to carry out normalisation of business with Pakistan,” Krishna said while taking note of Pakistan’s recent actions in the Mumbai terror probe.

“India should be quite satisfied with Pakistan taking a few steps to investigate the Mumbai attacks,” he replied when asked whether India would think of restarting composite dialogue.

Krishna attributed softening of his country’s position on normalisation of ties to “constructive signals” from the prosecution in Pakistan of the alleged masterminds of the Mumbai terror strikes.

Dawn said the Indian idea of “measured contact” was “not well-received in the foreign office”.

“However, diplomatic circles here believe that the change had been made possible because of behind-the-scene US pressure.

“The United States has stepped up its efforts to help Pakistan and India to defuse tensions fearing that continued animosity could affect its preparations for an intensified campaign against Taliban in Afghanistan,” it added.