NEW DELHI: Talks between India and Pakistan started in a tense atmosphere here yesterday with India saying “elements in Pakistan” were behind this month’s attack against its Kabul Embassy.
Pakistan denied any hand in the attack and asked India to provide “information” to backup its allegation and asked it to “refrain from the blame game.”
Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon said the attack on the Kabul Embassy which left dozens dead, had strained relations between the two countries, but that talks should continue. “All our information ... points to elements in Pakistan being behind the blast,” Menon told reporters in New Delhi.
“The dialogue process is stressed, and it will certainly affect our relations with Pakistan,” the foreign secretary said after talks with his Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir as part of the peace process the two rivals launched in 2004. But he added: “We consider it important that the dialogue process should continue.”
The visiting Pakistani official rejected Menon’s comments on the peace process and strongly denied Pakistan was involved in the embassy bombing.
“We must refrain from this blame game which we have played too long and it has got us nowhere,” Bashir said, “If they share this intelligence we will allay any misgivings they have, but it’s wrong to point fingers without evidence.” He said Pakistan was “engaged in the fight against terrorism in a serious manner.” Bashir said Islamabad was committed to strengthening the peace process, stalled in 2006 after of a series of bomb blasts on commuter trains in Mumbai.
Leaders of the rival nations — Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf — later agreed to resume the process after constituting an anti-terror panel comprising Foreign and Interior Ministry officials from both sides. Menon said yesternday’s talks had come at a “difficult time” in India’s relationship with Pakistan. “In the recent past, several events have vitiated the atmosphere,” he said. Nevertheless, Menon said Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi had telephoned his Indian counterpart Pranab Mukherjee on Sunday and the two had agreed to meet in Colombo on the sidelines of a South Asian regional summit starting Aug. 2.
Menon and Bashir discussed Kashmir and peace and security to launch the fifth round of composite dialogue between India and Pakistan.The two sides also agreed on a set of cross-border confidence-building measures including triple entry permits for senior citizens and their spouses along the Poonch-Rawlakot stretch. They also agreed to make the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service and the Poonch-Rawlakot bus link weekly from the current fortnightly service on Aug. 21 and Aug. 25 respectively.
— With input from agencies
