ISLAMABAD/NEW DELHI, 21 October 2004 — India and Pakistan yesterday announced schedule for expert-level talks on eight issues. The announcement was made simultaneously in New Delhi and Islamabad.
The two countries will hold talks in December on a proposal to start a bus link between the capitals of the parts of Kashmir they control, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said yesterday.
After trying for months to fix a date, the countries had agreed that the expert-level talks would take place on Dec. 7-8 in New Delhi, ministry spokesman Masood Khan said.
“We tried to schedule the meeting quite a few times but we did not succeed because of minor differences, or difference in interpretation,” he told a weekly news briefing.
“Now we have agreed on a date, and when the experts meet they will discuss each and every issue; documentation, political aspects, logistic aspects, the technical aspects, the infrastructure and so on.”
Pakistan and India have differed on what documents Kashmiris would need for travel in their divided homeland if the bus service began between Muzaffarabad in Azad Kashmir and Srinagar, capital of Indian-administered Kashmir.
India, which considers Kashmir an integral part of its territory, wants people traveling from its part of the divided region to carry Indian passports. Pakistan says the region is disputed and proposed travel with UN documents.
Khan said Pakistan had proposed that foreign secretaries, the top permanent officials of the foreign ministries, should meet in the third or fourth week of December, after the expert-level talks, “so that all this cycle of negotiations can be wrapped up”.
The talks are part of a comprehensive process of dialogue begun earlier this year between the nuclear-armed South Asian heavyweights, which have gradually patched up relations since coming close to a fourth war in 2002.
Khan also announced dates for expert-level talks on other issues, including nuclear confidence-building measures on Dec. 14-15 in Islamabad that would include discussion of a draft agreement on advance notification of missile tests.
Talks on conventional military confidence building measures will be held in Islamabad on Dec. 15-16 and on trade, in New Delhi on Dec. 9-10.
Kashmir will be discussed between the two foreign secretaries along with Peace and Security, he said.
Meetings were also scheduled on narcotics interdiction, on railway and maritime issues and the contentious issue of boundary demarcation of the resource-rich Sir Creek region.
