This issue will be taken up in the forthcoming foreign secretary-level talks. India has proposed February 18 or 25 for the meeting between foreign secretary Nirupama Rao and her Pakistani counterpart, Mr Salman Bashir.New Delhi would have no hesitation to discuss any issue which Islamabad may want to bring up, including Balochistan. Sources here said India’s conduct in Balochistan is an “open book”, using the same language Prime Minister Manmohan Singh used in Parliament when he was dragged over the coals for agreeing to the reference to Balochistan in the Sharm el-Sheikh joint statement. New Delhi would also be willing to hear Islamabad out if it raises Kashmir or other issues, such as sharing of river waters.It was suggested that the decision to invite the Pakistan foreign secretary for talks was not taken suddenly. Ms Rao and Mr Bashir were in touch since their September 2009 meeting in New York and they exchanged telephone calls in the last few months, most recently in January-end when she invited him for talks here.New Delhi justified its desire to restart dialogue with Islamabad on the ground that indefinitely prolonging the situation will not necessarily contribute to relaxation of bilateral tensions. It said dialogue was the only way to enhance trust and confidence and both sides needed to talk to each other, not past each other.No relationship is static, was New Delhi’s catch phrase.While offering the foreign secretary-level talks as an incremental way of reducing mistrust, India made it clear that the resumption of the composite dialogue is still a long way off.India cautioned Pakistan against a repeat of the Mumbai attacks, saying that bilateral ties would suffer should another terrorist attack be carried out against Indian interests.Sources expected Islamabad to be sensitive to New Delhi’s concerns, especially given the February 4 joint public meeting in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) of various terror groups in which Hafiz Saeed and others spewed hate and vitriol against India.
Age Correspondent