Ahead of the resumption of Foreign Secretary-level talks between India and Pakistan tomorrow, visiting Pakistani Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir met Geelani for 90 minutes.
Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao and her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir will be meeting at New Delhi on February 25,2010, under a face-saving formula which would enable both the governments to claim that the respective stand taken by them after the 26/11 terrorist strike in Mumbai stands vindicated by this meeting.
Ahead of his talks with his Indian counterpart Nirupama Rao, Pakistan Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir will be meeting leaders of various separatist outfits from Kashmir over the next two days.
Ahead of the foreign secretary- level talks, India said on Monday that it was ready to explore a "meaningful" relationship with Pakistan if it seriously addressed the threat of terrorism and stops terror acts against this country.
In an ice-breaking decision that could end the post-26/11 stalemate, India has offered to have Foreign Secretary-level talks with Pakistan to discuss terrorism and any other issue that could lead to peace between the two neighbours.
Displaying anger at the Kabul embassy blast in which "elements" based in Pakistan were involved, New Delhi on Monday said the incident had vitiated the atmosphere putting the dialogue process "under stress" and asked Islamabad to address its concerns.
Though the main focus of talks between Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon and his Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir is on peace and security, Jammu and Kashmir and CBMs, other issues like release of prisoners, visa relaxation, trade and commerce will also come up for discussions.
On the eve of crucial talks between Indo-Pak Foreign Ministers, top diplomats of the two countries met in New York on Saturday to prepare ground for the parleys, where India is expected to demand speedy probe into the Mumbai attacks and decisive action against their mastermind, Jamaat-ud-Dawaah chief Hafiz Mohd Saeed.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said he would adopt a "positive approach" for his meeting with his Indian counterpart S M Krishna on the sidelines of United Nations General Assembly in New York.
Separately, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said during a meeting with his Norwegian counterpart Jonas Gahr Store in Islamabad that Pakistan wanted its ties with India to normalise "by resolving bilateral disputes through a sustained and meaningful dialogue process."However, "engaging in talks for the sake of talks would serve no purpose," he was quoted as saying in a statement issued by the Foreign Office.
In its first formal response to India with regard to the Mumbai attacks, Pakistan on Friday said it had initiated a 'series of actions' in connection with the probe into the terror strikes.Pakistan's response was conveyed by Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir to Indian High Commissioner Satyabrata Pal, a day after External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said Islamabad should inform New Delhi through diplomatic channels about steps it had taken in the wake of the Mumbai strike
Though Pakistan fears that a repeat of the Mumbai attacks could be "very dangerous" to it, there is relatively little shift in its attitude towards India which it views as a "threat", a noted US scholar has said.
A report by leading Pakistani daily The News, on the bilateral talks held in New Delhi on Thursday, has claimed that Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao was not invited to Pakistan by her counterpart Salman Bashir.
Shortly after Pakistan Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir addressed a press conference in New Delhi that was seen as acrimonious, sources in the government said that by offering to hold talks, India had made a sincere effort to rebuild trust and would watch how Pakistan acts on its core concern of terrorism.
Pakistan Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir who spoke to the media at the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi on Thursday after meeting his Indian counterpart Nirupama Rao said his country desired better ties with India but said Pakistan did not wants talks in which it is lectured to by India.
Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister He Yafei, who will hold consultations with the top leadership of its 'all weather ally', stressed the need for maintaining peace and stability in South Asia, the Daily Times newspaper reported.Yafei, who met Pakistan Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir on Sunday called on India and Pakistan to work together to defuse the heightened tensions.
Indian High Commissioner Satyabrata Pal on Friday met Pakistan Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir to discuss the situation in the region.
Accusing "elements" in Pakistan for the suicide attack on Indian mission in Kabul, India Monday made it clear that the recent spate of terror attacks and ceasefire violations triggered from across the border have put the peace process "under stress". In some tough-talking, Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon told his Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir that these concerns of New Delhi must be addressed.
Now, it is quite clear that the real 'talk' that Pakistan wanted to do with India was done by Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir in his press conference at the Pakistan Embassy.
Pakistan's Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir on Wednesday refused to confirm news reports about official investigations concluding that Kasab was a Pakistani citizen."I can at this point of time only say that our investigation is continuing. We are not in a position to confirm (the media report)," he told a TV channel.Asked if he was denying that Kasab is a Pakistani, he said, "What I am saying, mark my words, we are not in a position at this point to confirm this."
Facing flak for inaction against Mumbai attack perpetrators, including Hafiz Mohd Saeed, Pakistan today said it does not want to take to court a "half-baked" case against the JuD chief in the absence of "legally tenable" evidence and asked India not to hold back the ties on a single issue.
Strongly pitching for resumption of suspended Indo-Pak dialogue process, Pakistan on Thursday said the two countries should not "remain prisoners of the past or the present" and once they move forward all other things, including movement in trade ties, will fall in place.
Pakistan on Monday sided with India on the row over the treatment meted out to senior diplomat Devyani Khobragade in the United States and said such treatment should not be meted to any official of another country.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday got a formal invite from his Pakistan counterpart Nawaz Sharif for visiting that country, which was accepted.
Asserting that it accords high priority for improvement of ties with India, Pakistan on Tuesday said "all branches" of its government have been given "clear policy directives" to work towards it.
Veteran Pakistani diplomats Syed Ibne Abbas and Jalil Abbas Jilani would be the new Pakistani envoys to India and the United States respectively as part of a wide-ranging reshuffle of envoys in key capitals around the world.
He said, "We are not desperate. If India wants more time, it will find Pakistan ready for it". He said, "let us not discard the composite dialogue process". But included in that is the point that Kashmir continues to be the core issue between India and Pakistan, with Pakistan continuing to cater to its domestic constituency even as it has come to the talking table with India after a gap of 14 months.
Pakistan has dropped plans to send Syed Ibne Abbas as the new high commissioner to India and instead replaced him with career diplomat Abdul Basit, a top Pakistani official said on Monday.
Pakistan had promised to grant this status, mandatory under global trading rules, to India in December 2012.
Efforts to normalise trading relations expected during the first such meet on Saturday
'Pakistan is keen on a peaceful process. We would like to have a sustained and comprehensive dialogue process.' 'At one point Pakistan wanted no dialogues with India without the resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir issue. That didn't work then nor will it work in the future.' Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit tells Bikash Mohapatra/Rediff.com what Islamabad expects from the new government in New Delhi.
'The Modi government knows that much cannot be expected of Pakistan till the Kulbhushan Jadhav issue is resolved,' says Rajeev Sharma.
In the first high-level contact with Pakistan since the Mumbai attacks, Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon met his Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir in Colombo on Thursday and rejected his suggestion for resumption of Composite Dialogue till Islamabad took credible steps to end terrorism.
The National Investigation Agency on Thursday told a Mumbai court it has found no evidence to link nine Muslims arrested in the 2006 Malegaon blasts case to the terror attack, a move that could see them walk free.
A look at the top tweets from your favourite Bollywood celebrities.
Charges against eight Muslim youths accused in the 2006 Malegaon bomb blasts case were on Monday dropped by a special court in Mumbai due to lack of evidence against them.
Aseem Chhabra tell us how he watched 302 films in 365 days on airplanes, on Netflix, Amazon, iTunes, Google, Hulu, DVDs and even on YouTube.
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