Amid signs of widening rift, Pakistan's Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar has said she is looking forward to meet United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday to discuss the "strained ties".
New Delhi and Islamabad have, in the recent past, taken many positive steps to make bilateral relations cordial. For instance, the two countries have firmed up a draft bilateral visa agreement that will ease travel between the two countries.
Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar on Wednesday said Islamabad is not backtracking on its decision to normalise bilateral trade with New Delhi.
Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar will carry the "complete mandate" of Pakistan's government and opposition during her interaction with Indian officials, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said on Tuesday. Gilani made the remarks while taking the leadership of all political forces "into confidence on the dialogue process with India", an official statement said. Khar "would be able to put across Pakistan's perspective with confidence", he said.
Against the backdrop of Pakistan's flip-flop on the issue of granting the most favoured nation status to India, Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar on Friday held consultations with the top civil and military officials in Islamabad on the dialogue process with New Delhi.
Pakistan on Wednesday reacted angrily to a leaked NATO report that accused its security services of helping the Afghan Taliban just as Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar began a visit to Kabul, saying the allegations were "frivolous".
The United States has the right to target the Haqqani network that not only kills American troops in Afghanistan, but also sponsors Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, said Senator Carl Levin, who chairs the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee.
India and Pakistan are engaged in a "substantive dialogue process" that Islamabad hopes will be "uninterrupted and uninterruptable" as it looks forward to resolve all outstanding issues like the Kashmir dispute, Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said on Tuesday.
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Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar on Tuesday expressed hope that the positive trends seen in Indo-Pak relations in 2011 would continue this year to boost the agenda of development and prosperity in the region.
United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has told her Pakistani counterpart Hina Rabbani Khar to take strong action against terrorist groups particularly Lashkar-e-Tayiba and the Haqqani network, which is blamed for last week's deadly attack on American embassy in Kabul.
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Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar has blamed Afghan refugees living in Pakistan for the assassination of former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani and said they are responsible for various other problems.
Pakistan's parliament will decide the contours of future relations with the United States and its allies after November's cross-border NATO air strike, Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said on Thursday.
Noting that India and Pakistan have made "major strides" in reducing their trust deficit, External Affairs Minister S M Krishna on Friday said he will visit Islamabad this summer.
With a deadly North Atlantic Treaty Organisation air raid sparking outrage in Pakistan, Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar has said it was time for the country "to review its relations" while demanding "complete clarity" from the international community on Islamabad's sovereignty.
Noting that "time had come to review relations", Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar has said that Americans have been issued a notice to vacate Shamsi airbase in line with the cabinet's decision after the cross-border NATO attack that killed 24 soldiers.
Enraged by the NATO strike that killed at least 24 of its troops, Pakistan on Sunday told the United States that the "senseless" attack negated progress in improving ties and forced it to revisit terms of engagement, as Washington quickly moved to salvage the already fragile relations backing a probe into the incident.
Admitting that the 'memogate' scandal has raised questions about the strength of Pakistan's civilian government and the influence wielded by the powerful military, Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said it was "ridiculous" to link President Asif Ali Zardari to the controversial note. questions. It doesn't take much to be able to raise those questions," Khar said. She was responding to a query about the 'memogate' controversy.
"Pakistan had positively evaluated the talks and welcomed India's readiness for a broad ranging engagement," Khar said in a statement issued here by the Foreign Office, a day after Manmohan Singh met his Pakistani counterpart Yosuf Raza Gilani on the margins of the SAARC summit in Maldives.
Pakistan's newly appointed Foreign Minister Hina Rabani Khar following bilateral talks with her Indian counterpart S M Krishna on Wednesday speaks about engagement with India, 26/11 trial and her first official visit to India in this exclusive interview with CNN-IBN.
Carrying forward their engagement process, India and Pakistan on Wednesday announced new Confidence Building Measures, notwithstanding the unhappiness in New Delhi about Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar's meeting with Kashmiri separatist leaders.
Pakistan army is a "stakeholder" in the dialogue process with India and fully supports the initiative to improve bilateral ties, Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar has said while claiming that Islamabad has not backtracked on the Most Favoured Nation issue.
On the eve of a key conference on Afghanistan in Istanbul on Wednesday, Pakistan on Tuesday said the world community should focus on implementing existing mechanisms for regional peace and security instead of floating proposals for creating a new security structure for the war-torn country.
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Khar made the remarks while speaking during question hour in the National Assembly or lower house of parliament.
Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar on Sunday fought back allegations that Pakistan had not done enough against extremists, reminding that the "Frankenstein" of terrorism in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region was financed by the United States but her country had been left alone to sort out the mess.
A meeting of Pakistan's top political leadership convened by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to discuss the tensions with the US will "give strategic direction to the nation in the wake of security threats", an official statement said on Monday.
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Sunday asked Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar to cut short a visit to the United States and return to Pakistan even as the army's top commanders held a special meeting against the backdrop of mounting tensions with the US over Inter-Services Intelligence's links with terror groups.
There has neither been an agreement between Pakistan and the United States for a military offensive in North Waziristan, nor has any final decision been taken on the operation, Pakistan's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar has said.
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As Pakistan brainstorms to revamp its foreign policy after last month's deadly strike by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said the country will retaliate against all future attacks, but also made it clear that Islamabad is not taking its ties with the United States to a point of no return. Khar made the remarks as she presided over a session of the two-day meeting of envoys convened to frame recommendations for a foreign policy revamp
India and Pakistan on Wednesday acknowledged that the trust deficit between them was "shrinking" and termed terrorism as a threat to both countries.
Much before Hina Rabbani Khar, the newly appointed foreign minister of Pakistan, touched Indian soil a senior Indian minister had told a select group of journalists that 'substantial political issues concerning Kashmir will not be on the table when foreign ministers of India and Pakistan meet in New Delhi on Wednesday.'
The meeting between the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan in New Delhi on Wednesday ended on a positive note with visiting Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar calling for a "new era of amity".
Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar on Wednesday underlined Pakistan's commitment for "friendly, cooperative and good" neighbourly relations with India as she met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi and handed over an invitation to him from Yousuf Raza Gilani.
Ahead of Indo-Pak foreign ministers meet in New Delhi on Wednesday, Pakistan Minister Hina Rabbani Khar on Tuesday met both the Hurriyat Conference factions during which the separatists sought Islamabad's intervention for release of Ghulam Nabi Fai arrested in US for being a front of Inter Services Intelligence.
Foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan on Tuesday held "positive" talks on key issues setting the stage for Wednesday's meeting between their ministers S M Krishna and Hina Rabbani Khar.
Pakistna Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Monday said talks are the "only way forward to improve ties with India" and Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar's visit to New Delhi will provide an opportunity for the two sides to move ahead with the process of negotiations.
The visit of the Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar to Kabul was good and well timed, the United States has said even as it awaited the details of the trip from the two countries.
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