Islamabad, Feb. 10: Pakistan has decided to put all issues, including Kashmir, Sia-chen, Sir Creek and the water dispute, on the table when Pakistan and India meet next month, official sources said here.
"It has been decided that not only terrorism but all the issue between the two sides will be put on the table. The dialogue can’t be conditional. It should be aimed at resolving things," a senior government official who attended the inter-ministerial meeting to finalise strategy for talks with India told this newspaper. "The strategy has been finalised. The idea is to discuss everything that Pakistan and India can talk on. It (the talks) should not be confined to terrorism," he added.
Officials of various ministries and departments briefed Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on talks with India. Officials of the interior, defence and foreign ministries, ISI, and other departments attended.
Pakistan high commissioner in India Shahid Malik had arrived in Islamabad on Tuesday to attend the meeting. He briefed the meeting regarding his meetings with top Indian officials.
"After discussing the issue (talks with India) for several hours, it was decided that the foreign secretary-level talks proposed by India (for next month) should not be confined to terrorism. The dialogue must cover all the issues, including the core issue of Kashmir, Siachen and Sir Creek," the official said.
The official said Mr Qureshi made it clear that Pakistan would not budge an inch from its "principled stand on Kashmir" and safeguard its interests during the talks with India, which put off the composite dialogue with Pakistan following the Mumbai terror attacks. He claimed India had "jumped to the conclusion that Pakistan was involved in the attack without providing any concrete evidence". He said that besides the conflicts over water distribution and Kashmir, Pakistan will also like India-Pakistan trade to be part of the talks.
On Wednesday, US defence secretary Robert Gates warned that South Asian militant groups were seeking to destabilise the entire region and could trigger a war between nuclear-armed Pakistan and India. Reflecting the anxiety in the region about New Delhi’s reaction if it were attacked by a militant group with roots in Pakistan, Mr Gates said restraint by India could not be counted on.
Pakistan has acknowledged that some part of the 26/11 conspiracy was hatched in Pakistan by non-state actors. Pakistan raided militant organisations and arrested Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi and Hafiz Mohammad Saeed (founder of the LeT and head of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa) along with 124 activists throughout Pakistan.
Hafiz Saeed was arrested in Pakistan in December 2008 but the Lahore high court released him in June 2009 in the absence of "concrete evidence". The Pakistan government has lodged an appeal with the Supreme Court for his re-arrest.
Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff, General Ashfaq Kayani, on Wednesday chaired a corps commanders’ conference at the General Headquarters in Rawalpindi, near here. "The security situation on the country’s eastern and western borders, and other regional issues related to military affairs, were discussed in the meeting," a military statement said.
Shafqat Ali