Thaindian News

New Delhi, June 23 (IANS) India and Pakistan are set to kick off a string of back-to-back meetings, starting with talks between their foreign secretaries Thursday that are aimed at bridging post-26/11 trust deficit and exploring ways to revive dialogue between them.
Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao will fly to Islamabad along with Home Secretary G.K. Pillai Wednesday for talks with their Pakistani counterparts.

Rao will hold wide-ranging talks with Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir that will cover an entire gamut of bilateral issues, including terrorism, Jammu and Kashmir, confidence-building measures and the Indus water dispute.

All issues are on table, including Jammu and Kashmir, official sources said here ahead of the talks.

From India’s point of view, terror will top the agenda.

During delegation-level discussions, India will press for the speedy trial of seven 26/11 terror attacks suspects in Pakistan, concrete action against Hafiz Saeed, the suspected mastermind of the Mumbai carnage, and against those groups based in Pakistan nurturing anti-India agenda.

Ten terrorists had held Mumbai hostage for 60 hours from Nov 26, 2008, killing 166 innocent men, women and children.

Rao is also expected to take up a recent spike in cross-border infiltration and ceasefire violations that are marring the spirit of thaw that followed the summit talks between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Yousaf Raza Gilani in Thimphu nearly two months ago.

Manmohan Singh and Gilani had directed their foreign ministers and foreign secretaries to meet and work out modalities of restoring trust between the two countries.

Signalling India’s intention to revive dialogue, official sources said here India was going into these talks in “an exploratory, not an accusatory way.”

The talks between Rao and Bashir will set the stage for the crucial meeting between External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna and his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi in Islamabad July 15.

Pillai is going to Islamabad for a meeting of senior officials of the eight-nation South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).

The foreign secretary-talks will be followed by a meeting between Home Minister P. Chidamabaram and Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik Friday.

In his meeting with Malik, Chidambaram is likely to press for the voice samples of Hafiz Saeed, the founder of Jamaat-ud-Dawa-turned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), and LeT’s commander Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi.

The disclosures made by Pakistani-American terror suspect David Coleman Headley, linking the Mumbai attacks to the LeT operatives in Pakistan, will also figure in the discussions, sources said.

Chidambaram will represent India at the SAARC meeting of home ministers in Islamabad Saturday.