ISLAMABAD, 17 September 2003 — India’s foreign minister has said a regional summit in Pakistan in January would not necessarily provide a forum for the resumption of bilateral talks with rival Pakistan.
Yashwant Sinha said “adequate preparations” must be made before the leaders of Pakistan and India met to discuss contentious issues between the nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours.
“I am bringing expectations down,” Sinha said in an interview published in independent Pakistani newspaper the News yesterday.
“It’s a regional multilateral forum, consisting of seven countries. It should not automatically mean that there will be summit level discussions on bilateral issues between India and Pakistan.”
Relations between the rivals, who went to the brink of war last year, have thawed of late, but the resumption of official talks is seen as some way off.
Leaders from the seven-nation South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) are due to hold their 12th summit in Pakistan in January and India has indicated Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee will attend. “The point remains that there must be adequate preparations for a summit level meeting,” Sinha said.
“I don’t see enough time between now and the January summit of SAARC for such a (bilateral) summit to take place.”
The 12th SAARC summit was originally planned for last January, but was postponed after India declined to attend because of tension with Pakistan.
Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmoud Kasuri said over the weekend he planned to visit India next month to invite Vajpayee formally to the SAARC summit.
But Indian Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal responded coolly on Monday, saying a “personal handing over of invitation” for the summit was not required.
India blames Pakistan for militant attacks in Indian Kashmir and other parts of the country and insists that Pakistan curb the movement of guerrillas across a cease-fire line dividing Kashmir.
