India, Pakistan foreign secretaries to meet today
Category :
National |
Posted Date :
26/07/2011
NEW DELHI: Ahead of the crucial meeting between foreign minister S M Krishna and his Pakistani counterpart Hina Rabbani Khar on Wednesday, government sources said that terror was still the number one issue on the agenda for talks with Pakistan. Pakistani foreign secretary Salman Bashir arrived in Delhi on Monday and will hold talks with his Indian counterpart Nirupama Rao on Tuesday to set the agenda for the meeting between the two foreign ministers.
Khar is expected to arrive in Delhi on Tuesday evening. She is likely to hold a meeting with Hurriyat leaders the same evening. While official sources did not confirm any knowledge of this meeting, they did say that such a meeting, if it happened, would be a "bad idea".
Ruling out any disconnect between the foreign ministry and home ministry over the Pakistan policy, home minister P Chidambaram said India could not take its "eyes off the ball" on the 26/11 terror attacks as Pakistan had "done very little" to bring to justice those behind the carnage.
"We support engagement with Pakistan and we should engage them in as many areas as possible... At the same time, we emphasise that on the issue of 26/11, we cannot take our eyes off the ball," Chidambaram told a news agency. "We have to keep our focus on 26/11 and unfinished work related to it ie to bring perpetrators, handlers and controllers behind these terror attacks to justice. I cannot take my eyes off that ball," he added.
Chidambaram's comments came even as LeT chief and 26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed publicly vowed to enter India through Kashmir. "From the door of Kashmir we will launch Gazwah-e-Hind (battle for Hindustan)," he said. Addressing a meeting during a tour of several cities in Pakistan's Punjab province last week, he claimed that there was a secret agreement between India and Israel to "destroy Pakistan's nuclear assets".
After landing in Delhi, Bashir said there was no trust deficit between the two countries at the leadership level. "There is no trust deficit in so far as the upper echelons at the leadership level is concerned. What we call the trust deficit has to be more clearly understood, I think, basically the effort is to actually build greater understanding, instead of saying that it is a trust deficit, I would say, deepening of understanding," said Bashir.
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