Thaindian News

New Delhi/Islamabad, July 21 (IANS) India and Pakistan Thursday announced that talks between their foreign ministers will take place July 27.

In New Delhi, the external affairs ministry announced that Pakistan’s newly appointed Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar would visit New Delhi for the bilateral talks.

“These talks will be preceded by a meeting of the foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan July 26,” the ministry said.

A terse announcement from Pakistan’s foreign office in Islamabad said Khar would be visiting New Delhi at the invitation of Krishna.

Ahead of the talks that come exactly two weeks after the July 13 triple bombing in Mumbai, the two sides have made right noises about sustaining the peace process resumed only in February this year.

There was a long hiatus following the Nov 26-28 terror attacks in Mumbai that froze their engagement and brought ties to a new low.

Issues relating to cross-border terror will figure prominently in the foreign minister level discussions. The two sides are likely to unveil a slew of new confidence building measures to expand trade and travel across the divided halves of Kashmir, officials said.

Krishna sent a felicitation letter to Khar Tuesday soon after she was sworn in as foreign minister, saying he looked forward to meeting her in New Delhi and hoped for “friendly and cooperative” ties between the two countries.

In Islamabad, the 34-year-old Khar, Pakistan’s first woman foreign minister and youngest person to occupy the key post, met India’s High Commissioner Sharat Sabharwal and conveyed that the two sides should make the dialogue process “uninterrupted and uninterruptable” to help build trust between two countries.