BeyondHeadlines News Desk
New Delhi: Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao and her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir will have a special meeting today to discuss various issues related to Jammu and Kashmir.
Sources said that the special session on Kashmir has been thrust on India, as they resume their dialogue in Islamabad today. This feeling among Indian circles comes as India’s key concerns related to terror have not been addressed yet. For instance, Pakistan has made no tangible progress on the 26/11 trial but has succeeded in pushing India to talk on Kashmir.
Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao with her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir (file photo)
Pakistani Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar told reporters that “Kashmir is the core issue that divides the two countries.” “After all, isn’t that clear and can’t we both agree on that?”
The dialogue has been split into three half-day segments. A session on “peace and security CBMs” took place yesterday, and a session on “promotion of friendly exchanges” will follow the J&K session today.
India brought the issue of terrorism in the first session yesterday, saying that terrorism impacts peace and security of the region.
Rao and Bashir met in a restricted format — accompanied by the head of Pakistan desk, Y K Sinha, from the Indian side — for nearly 30 minutes.
MEA spokesperson Vishnu Prakash said the foreign secretaries had had “very cordial discussions, substantive talks and forward looking.”
