Thaindian News

New Delhi, June 22 (IANS) India and Pakistan underlined the need for patience and sincerity ahead of talks between their foreign secretaries in Islamabad starting Thursday.

Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao leaves for Islamabad Thursday for two days of talks with her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir. This will be followed by a meeting of their foreign ministers next month.

Aware of the many hiccups in their relationship, New Delhi and Islamabad are not trying to raise hopes from the meeting, which takes place soon after a row involving an Indian and a Pakistani warship.

Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna has said that in “the kind of talks we are going to be involved with, patience is something to be called for”.

Indian officials have said they have “realistic expectations” from the meeting, given the complexities of the bilateral relationship.

While India is expected to raise the role of anti-India terrorist groups based in Pakistan, Islamabad has said the Kashmir dispute would be a core issue on the agenda.

On Tuesday, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani underlined the need to address main issues “with sincerity” and voiced satisfaction about the diplomatic dialogue the two countries have resumed.

Gilani, who travelled to India March 30 to witness the India-Pakistan World Cup semi-final, called for more people-to-people contacts and said the two countries needed to live in peace.

Krishna said Monday that “terrorism was the central point” in talks with Pakistan.

India has said it will raise the revelations of Pakistani-American terrorist operative David Headley, who has alleged a close nexus between the Pakistan spy agency ISI and the Laskar-e-Toiba terrorist group.

The agreement to restart the comprehensive dialogue was reached in April 2010 between the Indian and Pakistani prime ministers in Bhutan.

It brought the two countries back to the discussion table after the 2008 Mumbai terror attack blamed on Pakistani terrorists.

But the actual dialogue began only after the foreign secretaries met in Thimphu in February this year.

This was followed by meetings between the commerce and home secretaries of the two countries.

This apart, their defence secretaries discussed the demilitarization of the Siachen glacier in Kashmir. India and Pakistan also discussed the Sir Creek maritime border.

The build-up to the foreign secretaries talks have not been promising.

Pakistan accused an Indian warship of “dangerous manoeuvres” in the Gulf of Aden when a Pakistani naval vessel was ferrying hostages freed by Somali pirates to Oman. India denied the charge.

Said an Indian official: “The whole comprehensive dialogue is to narrow down the trust deficit.”