THE FOREIGN ministers of India and Pakistan are to meet in mid-July in Islamabad in an attempt to resume formal peace talks between the nuclear-armed and antagonistic rivals following the deadly November 2008 Mumbai attacks.
India’s foreign minister S M Krishna yesterday said the July 15th invitation to talks had come via a telephone call from his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi.
“I am looking forward to these talks. Let’s hope that these efforts will be fruitful,” Krishna said.
“We were both of the opinion that great responsibility has been given to us to carry forward the [peace] process, to bridge the trust deficit and create an enabling environment to carry it forward,” Qureshi said.
But he cautioned that dialogue was “not going to be easy as there are no quick fixes; but the sincerity is there”. Qureshi said the two sides would discuss “all issues of concern” and that he planned on visiting New Delhi at a mutually convenient date for further discussions.
The Indian and Pakistani interior ministers would meet earlier on the sidelines of a regional South Asian summit in Islamabad on June 26th.
Since the Mumbai attacks in which 10 gunmen laid siege to the city for nearly three days killing 166 people, India has repeatedly rebuffed Pakistan’s calls to resume the peace dialogue begun in 2004 and ended inconclusively four years later.
India blames the Pakistan-based Lashkar-i Taiba (Army of the Pure) Islamist group for the Mumbai strike and insisted that Islamabad had not done enough to bring its perpetrators to justice.
Under pressure from India, the US and overwhelming evidence – one of the 10 gunmen was captured and sentenced to death last week in Mumbai – Pakistan has grudgingly admitted that the attacks were planned partially on its territory and is presently trying seven men for their involvement.
In recent months, however, contact between the neighbours who, since independence in 1947, have fought three wars and an 11-week military engagement along their disputed Kashmir border 11 years ago, had intensified, largely under Washington’s guidance anxious to usher in peace in a volatile region.
In February, a meeting between respective senior foreign ministry officials took place in Delhi while talks between prime ministers Singh and Yousuf Raza Gilani were held in the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan at a regional conclave further stimulating the peace process.
The earlier bilateral “composite peace dialogue” begun in 2004 sought to resolve the myriad outstanding issues between the neighbours including disputes over the divided Kashmir region, sharing common water resources, among others.