Indian, Pakistani Foreign Ministers to Meet

By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The foreign ministers of India and Pakistan are scheduled to meet in September as part of a peace dialogue to help reduce tensions between the two nuclear-armed rivals (see GSN, July 19).

Indian External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh announced Friday that he and Pakistani Foreign Affairs Minister Mian Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri would meet Sept. 5-6 in New Delhi. India and Pakistan also plan to hold six meetings involving lower-level officials between now and mid-August to discuss issues such as economic cooperation and terrorism.

“India and Pakistan are committed to discuss and settle all bilateral issues, including that of Jammu and Kashmir, to the satisfaction of both sides,” Singh said Friday prior to leaving Islamabad, where he attended a meeting of the Council of Ministers of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation.

India and Pakistan early this year announced plans to conduct a peace dialogue, which the two countries have expressed hope would lead to the resolution of their dispute over control of the Kashmir region, which has been a source of conflict in the past. Through the dialogue, India and Pakistan have agreed to several risk-reduction measures, such as creating a formal system of advance notification of missile tests and a nuclear “hot line” between their foreign secretaries. The United States has praised the effort for seemingly helping to reduce tensions between the two South Asian neighbors.

During his five-day trip to Islamabad, Singh met with several senior Pakistani officials, including President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and new Prime Minister Chaudhury Shujaat Hussain, to discuss the progress of the Indian-Pakistani peace talks. Singh described the “attitude” of the Pakistani officials as “constructive and positive.”

In his 90-minute meeting with Musharraf, Singh said “no aspect of our relationship, including Jammu and Kashmir, was left out of our warm, frank and realistic discussions.”

According to Pakistani press reports, Musharraf told Singh during their meeting that Pakistan was committed to ensuring that the peace dialogue was a “success.”

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