ISLAMABAD, 12 March 2007 — Pakistan and India will hold the fourth round of talks this week to discuss Kashmir and other disputes between the two countries, Foreign Office officials said yesterday.
The two days of talks beginning tomorrow in Islamabad is part of a composite dialogue that the two countries began three years ago.
Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shanker Menon will travel to Islamabad to meet with his Pakistani counterpart, Riaz Mohammed Khan, said Tasnim Aslam, spokeswoman for Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
She gave no details, but another government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to make media comments, said the talks will focus on Kashmir and other bilateral issues including Siachen, Sir Creek, Wullar Barrage, peace and security, bilateral trade, terrorism and drug trafficking.
President Gen. Pervez Musharraf has mooted new ideas for a peaceful solution to the Jammu and Kashmir issue and an Indian response is still awaited.
Menon and Khan, the top officials in the two nations’ foreign ministries, last met in November in New Delhi when they restarted the peace process after it temporarily broke down over bombings in July on trains in the Indian city of Mumbai, which killed more than 200 people.
India accused Pakistan’s intelligence service and a Pakistan-based militant group of involvement, which Islamabad denied.
Last week, the two countries pledged to share information to help prevent terrorism in their countries.
While the peace process has not produced any major breakthrough on Kashmir, it has seen the two countries normalize diplomatic ties, resume severed transportation links, and made travel across the two countries’ heavily militarized border easier.
Both India and Pakistan control parts of the Himalayan region of Kashmir, which both claim.
