May 11: External affairs minister S.M. Krishna will visit Islamabad on July 15 for talks with his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi to discuss confidence- and trust-building measures.
The date and venue of the talks was firmed up Tuesday in a telephone conversation between the two ministers, who last met here on November 26, 2008 just hours before terrorists from Pakistan unleashed mayhem in Mumbai, killing around 200 people.
Since then, the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan have never visited each other’s country, only meeting on the sidelines of multilateral summits.
The Krishna-Qureshi meeting would be preceded by home minister P. Chidambaram’s visit to Islamabad on June 26 for the much-delayed meeting of the home ministers of Saarc countries.
Foreign secretary Nirupama Rao will get an opportunity to exchange notes with her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir on the sidelines of the Saarc home ministers’ meeting.
Prime Ministers Manmohan Singh and Yousaf Raza Gilani, who met in Bhutan in April, had mandated their ministers and officials to discuss a roadmap to carry forward the dialogue.
Speaking to journalists, Mr Krishna said: “I am looking forward to these talks. Let’s hope these... will help bring our countries closer together, bring the cordiality we desire and that... our efforts will be fruitful[.]” In Islamabad, Mr Qureshi said India and Pakistan were going into the talks with an open mind. He said: “I will not create any false hopes. I am an optimist, yet a realist. I recognise the challenges (and) the difficulties. I recognise the trust deficit. It is an uphill task[.] Don’t expect miracles overnight. The good thing is that on both sides we have democracies, and democracies believe in negotiations... There are no quick fixes.”