SMK, Khar likely to meet in Tokyo
Just days after the India-Pakistan foreign secretary-level talks held here, it is expected that external affairs minister S.M. Krishna will meet his Pakistani counterpart Hina Rabbani Khar on the sidelines of the Tokyo conference on Afghanistan slated for Sunday.
There are other bilateral meetings on the anvil for Mr Krishna, among them with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the new French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius. However, it’s the meeting with Ms Khar that will clearly grab eyeballs given the tenuous steps the two neighbours have been taking ever since they revived a dialogue process that got stalled in the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks.
Mr Krishna, who is already in Tokyo, last met the Pakistan foreign minister on the sidelines of the Seoul nuclear security summit in March this year. He will be heading for Pakistan in the first half of September this year on a visit that was earlier expected to take place this month.
During his meeting with Ms Khar, the external affairs minister is expected to raise the issue of terror emanating from across the border once again. It was a matter that was discussed during the foreign secretary-level talks held earlier this week too with New Delhi with Indian foreign secretary Ranjan Mathai telling his Pakistani counterpart, Jalil Abbas Jilani, that the on-going interrogation of LeT terrorist Abu Jundal has brought “urgency” to the need to bring the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks to book.
Indeed, even during the conference on Afghanistan in Tokyo, among the issues India is expected to focus on is the threat posed to the trouble-torn nation by terrorism.
Official sources noted on Saturday that “Afghanistan continues to be a country that faces an existential threat from terrorism emanating from beyond its borders — a threat that it is fighting everyday and is ill-equipped to repel in the absence of substantial assistance from the international community.”
Sources added that the international community’s continued assistance to Afghanistan is essential.
India, which inked a Strategic Partnership Agreement with Afghanistan in October 2011 is also keen to see the trouble-torn country attracting foreign investment if it is to progress economically.
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