A high-level Indian delegation led by National Security Adviser M K Narayanan arrived in Colombo on Friday for talks with Sri Lankan leaders amidst intense speculation on the nature of the visit, kept under wraps. The presence of Defence Secretary Vijay Singh in the delegation set tongues in political circles wagging in the backdrop of reports that with no let up in LTTE attacks Sri Lanka would like military assistance from India.
"We want to take relations forward," Menon said in his opening remarks.
India would like to see a consensus that builds on essentially the ideas that the then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi put forward of a nuclear weapon free world --moving towards it in pre-determined, verifiable time frame.
The draft 123 Agreement will be given to the American side by Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon on Tuesday when he visits Washington for the High Technology Cooperation Group meeting.
"We need to make sure that the Iran pipleline project is economically viable. This project has a life of 40 years," Menon tol the media in Delhi. Menon confirmed that India was trying to re-negotiate the Liquefied Natural Gas project with Iran. The deal was first made in 2005, but India feels there could be renegotiation.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is also likely to be in Beijing in November or December, the State-owned China Daily said a day after India's Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon held talks with senior Chinese officials on a range of issues
The Nation quoted Kasuri as saying in Islamabad that Pakistan welcomed the statement by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to make Siachen 'a mountain of peace'.
Promising to help Sarabjit Singh, Pakistani human rights campaigner Ansar Burney on Tuesday said he will seek pardon from the relatives of those killed in bomb blasts allegedly involving the Indian prisoner. Burney, who met Home Minister Shivraj Patil and Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon in Delhi, said he would also take up the case of another Indian national languishing in a Pakistani jail for 28 years.
Menon's visit follows serious concern expressed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over renewed violence in the island's embattled regions.
An image of the Indian and Pakistani foreign secretaries in New Delhi.
India and Pakistan are expected to tale up issues like terrorism and Jammu and Kashmir besides confidence building measures.
India has offered $10 million for the victims of a series of landslides in south-eastern Bangladesh that killed at least 123 people earlier this month, a foreign office spokesman said in Dhaka on Friday.
'Bush can climb over a tower and scream that Syed Salahuddin is a terrorist. But nobody would listen to him,' says the Hizbul Mujahideen leader.
The two sides will seek to wind up the year-long negotiations ahead of the meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President George W Bush in Germany next week on the sidelines of the G-8 Summit.
Significantly, the meeting between Menon and Burns on Tuesday will take place 10 days after senior officials from the two sides met in the South African city of Cape Town.
New Delhi's assurance was conveyed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during a meeting with his Nepalese counterpart G P Koirala, who is in Delhi to attend the two-day SAARC Summit starting on Tuesday.
Sheela Bhatt on the 4th round of the Composite Dialogue process between India and Pakistan.
After the half-an-hour meeting Monday evening, Menon said that they discussed the reform proposals in UN but did not elaborate.
When a media person asked why despite the affinity the United States had such a hard time endorsing India's bid for a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council, Burns went into a spin.
Menon was in Colombo to discuss the ethnic strife with the President.
Indian team led by foreign secretary will be back at the US State Department for negotiations early Friday and expect to be involved in some pretty intensive discussions, sources said.
Dr Singh said the centre would reiterate to the Lankan government that there is no military solution to the problem in that country.
Mumbai police on September 30 said the explosions were planned by Inter Services Intelligence and executed by activists of the banned Lashkar-e-Tayiba and Students Islamic Movement of India in New Delhi.
7/11: Home secy given evidence of Pak hand
The Pakistan Foreign Office had immediately rejected Mumbai Police's claim, which, it said, was "unsubstantiated" and "baseless".
India's high commissioner to Bangladesh Veena Sikri has sought premature retirement, upset over envoy Shiv Shankar Menon, who is two years junior to her, being appointed as the foreign secretary
Though no official announcement has been made regarding Suri's successor, it is reported that the Indian High Commissioner in Sri Lanka Nirupama Rao is likely to be the next ambassador in Beijing.
Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran met President Musharraf and briefed him on the outcome of the talks.
The problem with the nuclear deal is that the US and India are seeking to achieve different objectives.
The PM began his official trip to Japan but the real work begins tomorrow.
India will hand over 'some' evidence about ISI involvement in the bomb explosions and has made it clear that it would put Pakistan to the 'test' to determine how it cooperates in the fight against terrorism.
India's new high commissioner to Pakistan Satyabrata Pal on his stint in South Africa.
He was one of the contenders for the top slot in the foreign service, which has gone to 1972 batch officer Menon, India's High Commissioner to Pakistan.
Easing the visa norms that more people could travel across the borders with lesser restrictions.
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