NEW DELHI, Mar 13:
The much delayed meeting between Foreign Secretaries of India and Pakistan is likely to take place at the picturesque hill retreat of Pokhara in Nepal on the sidelines of SAARC- related meetings which are scheduled to start from tomorrow.
Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar, who is also Joint Secretary (SAARC), and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will be travelling to Nepal for the SAARC meetings in Pokhara between March 14-17.
Mr Jaishankar was to meet his Pakistani counterpart Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry in Islamabad on January 14 but the terror attack on the IAF’s Pathankot airbase on January 2 derailed the entire peace process, set rolling after a sudden stopover in Lahore by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Mr Modi’s visit to Lahore was preceded by a series of meetings in December. The NSAs of both the sides had a secret meeting in Bangkok followed by Ms Swaraj’s visit to Islamabad during which the two sides decided to resume the structured dialogue, with a new name “Comprehensive Composite dialogue” that included new subject matters. Unlike in the past, Pakistan was not in a denial mode, when the Indian security agencies confronted authorities in Islamabad with concrete proofs of involvement of Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists in the Pathankot terror attack.
The diplomacy of keeping talks on back-burner worked well as the Pakistani authorities at least seemed to act against the perpetrators of the attack.
The meeting of the Foreign secretaries had to be rescheduled to “a very near future” by mutual understanding, which is likely to take place now after a gap of two months.
A separate pull aside meeting between Ms Swaraj and Pakistan Prime Minister’s Advisor on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz is also likely during the meeting. However, the Indian External Affairs Ministry is refusing to confirm any such meetings.
“No schedule of bilateral meetings has been drawn up. I’m not just responding in respect of Pakistan, we do not have any schedule of bilateral meetings. As you know, they are going for SAARC related events,” MEA spokesperson Vikas Swarup said during his last weekly media briefing.
Besides the Pathankot terror attack, the two sides are also likely to discuss the modalities for cross-examining the Indian witnesses connected to the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks case.
Pakistani investigators had said they need to interrogate 24 people in India. Earlier, two teams had come from Pakistan in 2012 and 2013 to meet with the people on the Indian side who were important in terms of the investigations in Pakistan.
India had always maintained that that 99 per cent of the evidence pertaining to the Mumbai terrorist attack in 2008 were in Pakistan. However, New Delhi had also insisted that it is open to cooperation with Pakistan, anything that helps expedite the Mumbai case trial. When the Judicial Commission came from Pakistan, New Delhi allowed four witnesses to be cross-examined during the visit in 2013.
Mr Swarup gave detailed programme of SAARC meetings to be held in Pokhara. The 52nd session of the Programming Committee of SAARC which is a Director Generals level forum will be in the Himalayan nation.
The 42nd Standing Committee of SAARC, which is a Foreign Secretaries level forum, will be held on March 16. These meetings will prepare the ground for the 37th session of the Council of Ministers on March 17, which will be attended by SAARC Foreign Ministers.
These meetings are a part of regular interactions within the SAARC framework. The last round of meeting was held in Kathmandu in November 2014 prior to the 18th SAARC summit.
The meetings would provide an opportunity to SAARC countries for a comprehensive review of decisions that have been taken across all SAARC forums over the past year-and-a-half.
“Our focus would be not only to take stock of these situations but also work out the way forward on priority issues where a coordinated approach is necessary. We also hope to review the state of play on agreements that were close to finalisation at the last Summit but could not be concluded,” Mr Swarup said.
“We also plan to seek the views of our partners in SAARC on the key initiatives mooted by us at the last Summit, including the SAARC satellite, the E-Knowledge network project etc.
“As is customary, the working of the various SAARC specialised bodies and regional centres will be scrutinised during the meetings and directions given for their work over the coming year,” he said.
To a question regarding SAARC satellite project, he said a large number of member countries have associated themselves with it. “We have received their support for the project with the details of the technical parameters that they were supposed to provide for us to start that particular service,” said the official. (UNI)
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