Chance for India, Pakistan thaw
From Islamabad Bureau Chief Ash-har Quraishi
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- The sidelines of a South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation meeting have served once again as an opportunity for nuclear rivals India and Pakistan to talk face to face about normalizing relations.
It was the third meeting between Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri and his Indian counterpart Natwar Singh -- who spent about two hours in informal talks.
"We talked about cross-border terrorism and infiltration also. We talked on all topics," Singh said on Wednesday.
The seven-nation SAARC organization aims at building integration between member countries and cooperation in the areas of economic cooperation and poverty alleviation.
While its mission has traditionally been to discuss issues of multilateral concern -- the meetings have recently proven a catalyst for initiating bilateral talks between India and Pakistan.
It was on the sidelines of the SAARC summit in January that former Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf signed a landmark agreement to return to the negotiating table and to discuss the thorny issue of Kashmir.
"This is a big challenge to both the leaderships to resolve the issue in a way that is satisfactory to them, but, above all, that is satisfactory to the people of Kashmir," Kasuri said.
Delegations from the two countries will meet over the next few weeks to discuss issues ranging from water disputes to cultural exchanges until the foreign ministers meet again in September ---- formally, this time --- to review progress.
Singh is making his first visit to Pakistan since his new government came to power in May.
While no breakthroughs were expected or announced during this week's meetings, experts and analysts say sustaining contact is any form is a positive step forward.
The SAARC bloc -- Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan -- was established 18 years ago to promote cooperation among its member states, but bitter feuding between India and Pakistan, the bloc's two main members, has undermined progress on most issues.
