The fifth round of delegate level composite dialogue between India and Pakistan begins on Monday for discussing on eight issues including terrorism, water-related disputes over the Siachen, Sir Creek, Kashmir, promoting economic cooperation, enhancing confidence building measures (CBMs) that includes more truck and bus operation services, the Wullar Barrage to checking terrorism and drug trafficking and friendly exchanges in several fields.
Besides these, Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon would also discus on the issue of visa relaxation, prisoners release and trade and commerce with his Pakistani counterparts Salman Bashir in two stages of two hours each round meeting including working hours of lunch at Hyderabad House in New Delhi on Monday.
Pakistani Foreign Secretary has reached to Indian capital a day before the scheduled meeting and met Lal Krishna Advani, leader of opposition in Lok Sabha at Sunday afternoon where they mutually exchanged views on bilateral relations in the context of on-going peace process between India and Pakistan. Later in the evening, he also met Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front Chairman Muhammad Yaseen Malik at Pakistan high commission, where they discussed on Kashmir related issues for two hours.
After arriving at New Delhi, Bashir expressed positive hope in the success of fifth round of composite dialogue between India and Pakistan that would mainly cover infiltration, CBMs and trade issues. “I have come to India to hold talks with my Indian counterpart on the issues of peace and security of both the neighbouring nations including J&K,” said Bashir in New Delhi.
On the other hand, New Delhi is hoping from Islamabad to take some concrete measures on infiltration, which is a major cause of concern for India. Recently on July 07, 2008 Indian high commission in Kabul, Afghanistan had been demolished through a bomb attack in which about 50 persons including one senior diplomat and an army officer were found dead.
Indian security agencies are probing Taliban, the Afghanistan terrorist organisation and ISI, the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) - the largest intelligence service of Pakistan- commanders’ hand in this attack while Pakistani is denying this allegation from the beginning. The Afghan government is also singing the same song with India quoting that this attack was in the protest of India’s interest with Afghanistan.
Earlier, in the forth-round meeting in Islamabad, Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukharjee had also raised the voice of terrorism in India and Pakistan and asked Pakistan to take some strict measure to curb insurgency. This issue had dominated that talk and it is also looking that ‘terrorism’ and ‘Kashmir’ issues would also dominate again in today’s meeting.
Earlier, Pakistani Foreign office on Sunday, before leaving Bashir Islamabad released a statement quoting, “During the talks, both sides will look into the prospects of a just and peaceful resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute. The talks will also focus on the issues of peace and security.”
“Implementation of various conventional, nuclear and cross-Line of Control confidence-building measures will be reviewed and possible new CBMs will be discussed. This meeting will provide an opportunity for the two foreign secretaries to discuss other areas of bilateral cooperation,” added Statement.
India is keen to begin truck operation service on Srinagar-Muzaffarabad route and Bus operation on Kargil-Skardu and Jammu-Sialkot route, which would enhance the social, and trade relationship between both the countries and boost sweetness too, as per sources said.
Pakistan on the other hand is willing to enhance trade relationship with India as the import of fuels from India would be proved cheaper because of differences in transportation cost, as a released Pakistani statement said on Friday. “This will also help us to address our global trade deficit,” it added.
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