India, Pakistan working on joint statement

[aruljothi]

 Indian foreign secretary Shiv Shankar Menon and his Pakistani counterpart, Salman Bashir, met here late night on Tuesday as part of renewed efforts by the two countries to restart the dialogue process and address the recurring problem of terrorists using Pakistani territory to launch attacks across the border in India.

Briefing reporters shortly after midnight, Indian officials said the talks, which lasted 90 minutes, involved a detailed and lengthy discussion on the issues that the two top foreign office diplomats had been tasked by their leaders to take up. The foreign secretaries agreed to meet again on Wednesday, the sources said, adding that there was a possibilitythat Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Yousaf Raza Gilani would "meet" the press together after their meeting on July 16.

The Indian sources refused to elaborate but the very fact that Indian and Pakistani officials are working towards the two Prime Ministers jointlymeeting or addressing the media means both sides have resolved to move the process forward, presumably by issuing a joint statement spelling out a common agenda.

The last joint India-Pakistan statement was in New York on September 24, 2008, when Mr. Singh met Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari.

Among the decisions announced then was the convening of a special meeting of the Joint Anti-Terror Mechanism (JATM) to "address mutual concerns including the bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul" and the commencement of cross-LoC trade on the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad and Poonch-Rawalakot roads. Cros-LoC trade began and has been a success but the JATM, which met onOctober 24, accomplished nothing of consequence.

Following the terrorist attacks on Mumbai on November 26-29, India suspended the composite dialogue pening action by Pakistan against the Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives and others who had hatched the conspiracy on Pakistani soil.

On June 17, 2009, Mr. Singh and Mr. Zardari met on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Yekaterinburg and agreed to ask their foreign secretaries to discuss what Pakistan had done and could do to address India's concerns relating to terrorism. The two foreign secretaries would then report back to their leaders, who would meet subsequently at Sharm-el-Sheikh on the sidelines of the Nonaligned Movement summit in this Egyptian resort on the Red Sea.

Mr. Menon arrived here on Tuesday night from Paris along with Mr. Singh and almost immediately went into a meeting with Mr. Bashir at the Savoy Hotel. The two men met one-on-one, without aides, the sources said.