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.
The joint statement following meeting between the Minister of External Affairs of India and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Pakistan
A few important points discussed during the meeting between Indian Foreign Minister SM Krishna and his Pakistani counterpart Hina Rabbani Khar:
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 India-Pakistan dialogue process should be "uninterrupted and uninterruptible" and help in building trust between the two countries, Pakistan's minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar said on Tuesday.
India and Pakistan on Wednesday acknowledged that the trust deficit between them was "shrinking" and termed terrorism as a threat to both countries.
Pakistan on Friday said that its foreign minister will be travelling to India in July to take forward the bilateral peace process. "What we can deliver at this stage is that our foreign minister will be visiting New Delhi in July," said Pakistan High Commissioner to India Shahid Malik. On the ongoing foreign secretary-level talks, Malik said, "They are going well." Pakistan currently has Hina Rabbani Khar as minister of state for foreign affairs.
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.
Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar, asked by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza to cut short her visit to the US amid growing tensions between the two countries, will return to Pakistan after addressing the UN General Assembly on Tuesday.
Indian envoy to the UN Hardeep Singh Puri said while there is no word yet of a formal bilateral meeting between Krishna and Khar, the "possibility" of a meeting in a social set-up "is very likely."
Ignoring fresh calls from the United States, Pakistan on Friday said it will not budge from its decision to boycott a key conference on Afghanistan's future in Bonn next week in the wake of a cross-border NATO air strike that killed its 24 soldiers.
All of 34, Hina Khar Rabbani, Pakistan's first woman and youngest foreign minister, was thrust into the spotlight as she landed in New Delhi on Tuesday.
Days ahead of her visit to New Delhi for crucial talks with her Indian counterpart, Pakistan's new Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar has said her priority in the parleys with India would be to set a future direction for the bilateral relationship. Khar said it is a "positive step" that India is serious in the talks and is moving to institutionalise the process of negotiations with Pakistan.
The foreign ministers of India and Pakistan are expected to meet in New Delhi on July 27 to review progress in the bilateral peace process that was revived earlier this year, according to a media report.
India is looking forward to Pakistan's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar's visit to the country next month for crucial talks between the two sides. This was conveyed by Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao, who is in Islamabad on a two-day visit for talks with her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir, to Khar when she called on the Pakistani Minister on Friday morning.
A day ahead of her visit to India for crucial peace talks, Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar on Monday said bilateral parleys on Kashmir issue should not be only "for the sake of dialogue" and should yield "constructive results".
A landmark constitutional reforms package, which includes proposals to strip the president of his sweeping powers, was on Thursday submitted to the speaker of Pakistan's Parliament by a key committee that finalised it, ahead of its possible introduction in the House on Friday.Raza Rabbani, the leader of the 26-member parliamentary committee on constitutional reforms, presented the package, popularly referred to as the '18th Constitution amendment'.
The main opposition Pakistan People's Party today decided to boycott next week's presidential election, saying it was left with no other option after the Supreme Court ordered the advancing of the poll.
A three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and Justices Ghulam Rabbani and Khalil-ur-Rehman Ramday gave the directive after taking up the petition filed by Lakhvi, who is being tried with six others by the anti- terrorism court in Rawalpindi on charges of planning and facilitating the Mumbai attacks.
Netizens turned witizens on Sunday as India thrashed Pakistan in the Cricket World Cup league game.
There is growing acceptance of the idea in the international community that engaging the Taliban government is a far better approach than ostracising it, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The Senate also allowed introduction of another bill drafted by the Leader of Opposition to provide for the ratification by the Upper House of all treaties, contracts and trade protocols signed by Islamabad with other governments.
Three TMC leaders Amit Mitra, Bratya Basu and Rathin Ghosh were sworn-in virtually. Mitra is unwell and both Basu and Ghosh are recuperating from COVID-19.
Sinha said the BSF will also hand over a list of 172 Indian insurgent camps in Bangladesh and ask the neighbouring country to dismantle them at the earliest.
Once a reviled practice in the state, both the parties seem to have endorsed a record number of turncoats this time -- triggering a wave of discontentment among their loyalists.
The Indian ace stole the limelight as Capital Dynamos beat Shan-e-Punjab 7-4 in Pakistan's Super Hockey League.
Four gunmen trying to storm a guesthouse in the diplomatic area of Afghanistan's Kabul have been killed, say the police.
Deputy Secretary of State John J Sullivan, who recently returned from a visit to Afghanistan, said the US also expects Pakistan to contribute to a lasting and enduring peace in the region.
Pak also suspended all bilateral visits as a mark of protest.
The road ahead will be long and winding and much resistance can be expected from the high-flying 'hawks' in our skies. But that should not deter the policymakers from planning a road map with the 'big picture' in mind, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The new faces in the state cabinet include former Indian cricketer Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Shovandeb Chattopadhaya, Kolkata Mayor Shovan Chatterjee, Abani Mohan Joarder, Abdur Rezzak Mollah, Suvendu Adhikari, Rabindranath Ghosh, Churamani Mahato, James Kujur, Siddikullah Choudhury, Asima Patra, Ghulam Rabbani, Zakir Hossain, Sandhya Rani Tudu, singer Indranil Sen, Tapan Dasgupta and B Hansda.
'Afghanistan cannot be at peace until the Pashtuns regain their pre-eminent role in the country's governance,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Polling started in Pakistan's National Assembly and four other provincial centres on Tuesday to elect a new president who will replace incumbent Asif Ali Zardari in September.
Condolences continued to pour in from world dignitaries for former external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj who breathed her last due to cardiac arrest on Tuesday night.
Pakistan has expressed serious concern over India's recent development of an anti-ballistic missile system
Ghulam Rabbani, a practising advocate, lodged the two-page complaint with Santosh Nagar police station, seeking legal action against Modi and his immediate arrest terming his statements as "highly provocative and malicious against Muslim community, with an intention to wound their religious feelings and promote enmity between Muslims and Hindus".
Nine candidates on Wednesday filed nominations for Pakistan's presidential election, with the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz's India-born nominee Mamnoon Hussain emerging a clear frontrunner for the poll to be held on July 30.
