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Pakistan to extend all help to India to fight terror: Bashir

July 25, 2011 22:34 IST
Striking a positive note ahead of the India-Pakistan talks, Pakistan Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir on Monday said Islamabad would extend all required cooperation to India on the terror issue and share related information.

Crossing over the Attari-Wagah border, Bashir, who will meet Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao in Delhi on Tuesday, said the effort on both the sides was to deepen understanding.

The two foreign secretaries are expected to discuss Confidence Building Measures, concerns on terror and steps to enhance people-to-people contacts and prepare the agenda for the meeting of External Affairs Minister S M Krishna with his Pakistan counterpart Hina Rabbani Khar on Wednesday.

"It is good to be back in Delhi for me personally and for my team. We are here a day ahead to prepare for the foreign ministers meeting. The Foreign Secretary of India was in Islamabad and we have covered some ground. We hope to give the preparations a final touch at our meeting on Tuesday," Bashir said on arrival at the Delhi airport from Amritsar.

There is no trust deficit in so far as the upper echelons at the leadership level is concerned, he said. "What we call the trust deficit has to be more clearly understood, I think, basically the effort is to actually build greater understanding, instead of saying that it is a trust deficit, I would say, deepening of understanding," he said.

"We had good engagement process for the last five six months and we hope that this will be productive and lead to a good meeting of the two foreign ministers," he said.

Bashir referred to the meeting of Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and Pakistan Premier Yousuf Raza Gilani at Thimphu and Mohali where they decided to take forward the dialogue process.

"Yes, the Thimphu and Mohali spirit will certainly help. I think there is no trust deficit so far as the leadership level is concerned. What we call the trust deficit has to be more clearly understood. I think, basically, the effort is to actually build greater understanding. Instead of saying trust deficit, I would say deepening of understanding," he said.

Bashir said Pakistan was committed to implement its anti-terrorism polices with utmost sincerity.

Asked about the recent serial blasts in Mumbai, he said Pakistan desired to find out the real accused and their faces should be unmasked.Pakistan, he said, would extend all cooperation to India in its fight against terror.

On the agenda for the talks, Bashir said Kashmir would figure in the deliberations. Insisting that Kashmir was the core issue for Pakistan, Bashir said it would be conveyed to New Delhi that Islamabad had no role in the violence in Jammu and Kashmir.

Thirty-four-year-old Khar, Pakistan's youngest and first women foreign minister would arrive in New Delhi on Tuesday for the ministerial parleys.

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