Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Wednesday said he is not expecting any "major breakthrough" in the upcoming meeting with his Indian counterpart S M Krishna though his country continues to be hopeful that bilateral relations will improve.
Pakistan on Saturday said India appears to be "hesitating" over the resumption of the stalled peace process due to its "internal political situation" and insisted that dialogue is the only way forward for the two countries.
Insisting that "war is not an option" in the region, Pakistan today said it is committed to resuming the dialogue process with India as talks are the only way forward to improve the bilateral ties.
Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Monday took stock of the country's probe into the Mumbai terror attacks ahead of a crucial meeting with his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh in Egypt this week.
Pakistan has welcomed India's decision to withdraw troops from some areas in Jammu and Kashmir.
Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi is expected to visit India next year if there is agreement on the "agenda" and "outcome" of his parleys with his Indian counterpart, the Pakistani Foreign Office said on Thursday.
Pakistan on Tuesday asked India to send 'positive signals' by deactivating its forward air bases and relocating ground troops to peace time positions, saying it is ready to cooperate in probing Mumbai attacks and bringing perpetrators of the crime to justice. Similarly, he proposed that ground forces, which have been deployed to the forward posts, should be relocated to peace time positions.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Pakistan will again raise their demand for a deal -- similar to one the US has with India -- during US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi's meeting in Washington on October 22.
Sweden on Wednesday threw its weight behind the contention of India and major powers like the United States and Britain that the Mumbai terror attacks had their roots in Pakistan and sought more effective steps to prevent recurrence of such incidents. "I think it's fairly obvious from the information that's available to me that the attack was based on Pakistani soil," Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said after a meeting with his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi.
Amid talk over why the Indo-Pak bilateral meeting did not work out on sidelines on the UNGA, Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi appeared to suggest that India had changed its mind on the meeting though he was willing to meet "anywhere, anytime".
Close on the heels of the US asking it to lend "absolute" cooperation to New Delhi over the Mumbai attacks, Pakistan proposed on Tuesday, the formation of a joint investigating mechanism with India to probe the deadly terror strikes that have sparked tension in bilateral ties.
The Indian government has not yet been formally asked to start supplying the aid and the Foreign Office spokesman said the matter is still being discussed. "We are working on it and the decision will soon be made public," spokesman Abdul Basit said.
Pakistan is yet to decide on India's offer of $5 million as aid for providing relief to victims of the country's worst floods, with diplomatic sources saying that the proposal is being considered by the foreign office.
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz chief Nawaz Sharif was taken into confidence on the issue when he met PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari on Monday to congratulate him on being elected president, Qureshi said.
Pakistan wanted to evolve a roadmap to discuss bilateral issues with India during the recent foreign minister-level talks but the other side was not prepared to do so, its Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit said on Sunday.
Krishna was with Dr Singh for about 30 minutes during which he gave a detailed account of his talks with Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and meetings with President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani.
Government sources said the hawkish elements in Pakistan, which do not want dialogue between the two countries, were upset when the talks between the Home Ministers and Home Secretaries went off well last month.
The strongest argument for the creation of Pakistan was that Hindustan, the undivided India, could not be trusted to take care of the Muslims of the subcontinent. If trust breaks out between them, the whole rationale for the existence of Pakistan will be called into question, says T P Sreenivasan.
Terrorism that continues to emanate from Pakistani soil will be high on the agenda of External Affairs Minister S M Krishna as he embarks on a mission to Pakistan on Wednesday, in an effort to bridge the trust deficit that has bedeviled the ties between the two countries.
India maintains that it wants to be part of the project but cannot go ahead till its concerns with regard to security and issues related to pricing of gas are addressed.
The investigation into the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto could cost Pakistan up to $100 million and take up to 14 months to complete, a media report said on Wednesday.Pakistan has assured the United Nations that it will provide all the money needed to investigate the assassination of Bhutto. The assurance was given by Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi during a meeting with UN officials. Bhutto was killed in a suicide attack after an election rally.
The dialogue will resume with Foreign Secretary-level talks in Islamabad on May 20, to be followed a day later by talks between External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi.During the talks, the Indian side will be eagerly looking for a clear official position of new government of Pakistan on Kashmir, as different leaders have been speaking in different voices on the subject.
Foreign ministers of India and Pakistan have sparred over the 26/11 probe with Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi accusing New Delhi of non-cooperation, prompting his Indian counterpart S M Krishna to ask the 'people who are sitting in the epicentre of terror' to introspect before making such allegations.
Pakistan is likely to walk out from the forthcoming summit on Afghanistan -- scheduled to be held in London on January 28 -- in protest against India being touted by the West to play a greater role in Afghanistan.
Unhappy with the behaviour of Pakistan over terrorism, particularly the Mumbai attacks, India is not too keen to have a foreign ministerial meeting with Pakistan, even though both Union Foreign Minister S M Krishna and his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi are in Port of Spain in to attend an international summit.
Union External Affairs Minister S M Krishna on Sunday said his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi assured him during a bilateral meeting that Islamabad will begin the trial of those recently arrested in connection with last year's Mumbai terror attack shortly, and that it would take steps to ensure that justice is done.
In contradiction to Pakistani President's interview to an English daily where he said he was ready to work with India in the 26/11 case, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi asserted that Pakistan will not buckle under pressure mounted on the Mumbai attacks issue.
'Nobody is sure if Baitullah is dead or alive. For me, he is still alive. He can be considered dead when the national flag of Pakistan is hoisted on the buildings of all the schools in South Waziristan and students celebrate August 14 without any fear.'
Making it clear that it is "not afraid" of talking, India on Wednesday said it expects Pakistan to take "concrete" and "visible" steps against perpetrators of Mumbai attacks and assure New Delhi that such incidents will not recur.
Amid differences with America on the issue of drone attacks against high-value terrorist targets on it soil, Pakistan on Tuesday said it would not give any "blank cheques" to the United States and not accept foreign troops in its territory in the ongoing war to root out the Al-Qaeda and Taliban.
Pakistan will proceed with its probe into the Mumbai attacks after getting India's response to a set of 30 questions seeking more information on the terror strikes, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has said.
Pakistan on Sunday rejected India's demand to hand over terror suspects linked to the strikes. Pakistan said there is no extradition treaty between the two countries. There can be no comparison between Pakistan's extradition of terror suspects to the United States and India's demand for the handing over of persons linked to the Mumbai attacks, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said on the eve of a top United States diplomat's visit to Islamabad.
Surprised over reports that Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi had invited him for tea at the Roosevelt Hotel, External Affairs Minister S M Krishna has said that he never received any such invitation. "If he has invited me, then I don't know the mode of invitation through which it was conveyed to me, but let me be very honest that I have not received any invitation," Krishna told PTI.
Pakistan today ruled out handing over to India any of its citizens found to be linked to the Mumbai attacks and warned that it was fully prepared for war in the event of a military confrontation in the wake of the terrorist strike.
Pakistan will build two more nuclear reactors with Chinese assistance as part of its efforts to improve civil nuclear cooperation between two close allies, a top official said today.
An inexplicable last-minute switch in the schedule of External Affairs Minister S M Krishna on Thursday afternoon gives a clue to how the script went wrong in the Indo-Pak talks in Islamabad.
"We have to look out of the box... we have to look at innovative ways of resolution (to the Kashmir issue). We have our minds open to such issues," Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said on Friday while delivering a lecture at the Brookings Institution.
Ahead of crucial Indo-Pak talks, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Monday said his trip to Pakistan was a 'goodwill visit" and that he is not going with any fixed agenda or "any expectation".
India had sought Pakistan's permission to use the country's airspace on October 28 for Prime Minister Modi, who will be visiting Saudi Arabia to participate in an international business conference on October 29.
Pakistani authorities have a tendency to "pass the buck" and exaggerate differences with India over the sharing of river waters though mismanagement within the country is resulting in the loss of 34 million acre feet of water, Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Quereshi said on Friday.
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